70 Game Survey of the North Central States 



about 15 years ago. Nearby is a tract cut over 10 years ago, and this has more 

 quail. 



In the Coldwater hills of Madison County, on the other hand, woods quail 

 are unknown to local sportsmen. The soils here are mostly formed from igneous 

 rocks rather than limestone, and I suspect support less food-bearing vegetation. 

 I personally observed less ragweed on the farms, and the map shows thin quail 

 populations even on the farms. 



In Texas County, the local sportsmen told me that woods quail occur where 

 there are trefoils or "stick-tights," and implied that they do not occur elsewhere. 

 In Benton County the game warden told me that quail did not go into the woods 

 last fall because the "stick-tights" did not mature their seeds. These two 'coun- 

 ties are evidently like Ripley, in that quail inhabit woods only temporarily. 



All of this evidence, even though it is circumstantial and second-hand, 

 strongly suggests that woods quail are determined by tick trefoil (Meibomia 

 sp?), and possibly other leguminous plants bearing preferred foods. Frederic 

 Dunlap, state forester of Missouri, believes that the legumes, growing as ground 

 cover in the Ozark forests, are responsible for such value as they have for cattle 

 range, and the same may be true of quail. 



Stoddard found that these native legumes were eliminated from the woods 

 in Georgia by summer cattle grazing, for the reason that the cattle did not allow 

 them to bloom and mature seeds. There is a high degree of probability that 

 grazing or fire or both determine woods quail, and also the extent to which farm 

 quail resort to woods throughout the Ozark and hill types of the north central 

 region. Even in Wisconsin the preliminary findings of the institute fellowship 

 indicate that summer cattle grazing excludes trefoils, and hence quail, from tim- 

 bered range. 



Here again, even without the final evidence of exact inter-relationships, we 

 may safely say that the distribution and abundance of quail is the accidental re- 

 sult of the distribution and nature of agricultural processes. 



Winter Cover. One of the characters common to the entire range of quail 

 in the north central region is that every farm has good quail cover from May to 

 December, but that most farms have deficient winter cover or often none at all. 

 By winter cover is meant cover which will harbor quail after frost has thinned 

 out the vegetation, and particularly while snow further increases the visibility of 

 all wild life which cannot seek refuge under ground. 



Winter cover need not render quail invisible if it supplies mechanical 

 obstacles, such as thorns or dense mats of stems, to prevent natural enemies from 

 successfully harrying the birds. Thus osage orange is a preferred winter cover, 

 particularly when it offers hanging branches covered with small thorns and reach- 

 ing almost to the ground, even though the quail are usually visible under it. Grape 

 vines, dense briars, dense roses, and conifers with low-hanging branches are all 

 good as winter cover. 



