72 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



palatable food, the seeds of 129 species of weeds; 

 and the quantity that one bird can consume in one 

 day is almost beyond belief. Ten thousand seeds 

 for one bird's daily ration is a small quantity, and 

 far below the average of what a healthy adult bird 

 requires. To kill weeds on the farm costs money, 

 hard cash that the farmer has earned by toil, or 

 labor of cash value which he himself bestows. Does 

 the average farmer ever put forth any strenuous 

 efforts to protect from poachers and other enemies 

 the quail that work so well and so faithfully for 

 him? The exceptional farmer does; the average 

 farmer does not. 



All that the average farmer thinks of the quail, 

 even those in his own coveys, is as so much meat for 

 his table. 



A list of the 129 species of weeds whose seeds are 

 eaten by the bob-white looks like a botanical rogues' 

 gallery. Conspicuous in it are such old enemies as 

 the pigweed, smartweed, beggar-tick, foxtail, bur- 

 dock, barnyard grass, crab grass, ragweed and 

 plantain. It has been calculated that if in Virginia 

 and North Carolina there were four bob- whites to 

 every square mile, and each bird ate one ounce of 

 weed seeds per day, from September 1 to April 30, 

 the total amount consumed in those two states 

 would be 1,341 tons. 



As a destroyer of insects it would seem that the 

 common quail deserves the first place. We know of 

 no other species whose appetite covers so wide a 



