Bob White. 223 



call attention to his personal attractiveness, Bob White, it 

 would appear, becomes suddenly conscious of his comely 

 looks and excellent voice. In a dignified manner, with head 

 erect, he walks proudly about, inviting the opposite sex to 

 view him at his best. From the orchard gate he calls a 

 saucy good morning to the farmer, knowing that the law 

 holds its agis over him at this time, but he keeps an eye to 

 hawks, cats and other predatory animals that respect neither 

 time, place nor season. He is polygamous, willing to assume 

 any amount of family responsibility, and will help to rear 

 two, or even three, broods a year, a successful pair often 

 turning out twenty-five young in a season. It is not an 

 uncommon occurrence to find a covey of little cheepers, 

 scarcely able to fly, as late as November. 



Although paired so early, the Quails do not proceed to the 

 business of nidification in the central part of their range 

 until about the middle of May. The leeward side of some 

 dense tussock of grass, a mouldering stump in a wild, matted 

 meadow, the woody margin of a clover field or orchard, or an 

 old pasture overgrown with bramble thickets, are situations 

 commonly chosen, the female, as is her undoubted right, 

 taking the lead in fixing upon the site. An artificial bed 

 of grasses and vegetable trash, filling a shallow depression, 

 is the nest. Sometimes it is placed so as to be concealed by 

 overarching grasses, through which a regular tunnel, several 

 feet in length, conducts to the sanctum ; and, at other times, 

 is only covered with leaves and straw, which the birds them- 

 selves have rudely adjusted. The nest, which is constructed 

 solely by the females of the family, varies in dimensions 

 according to the number of this sex that anticipate using it, 

 the male in the meantime going about in quest of food, or 

 sitting upon a low twig close by, cheering his wives by his 

 trisyllabic note, and very faithfully warning them of the 

 imminence of danger. 



The work is prosecuted with considerable zeal, three days 

 at farthest sufficing to make the nest ready for the first egg, 



