THE EARTH'S BOUNTY 



to save the crop. But no Bobwhites were ever 

 seen in the act of taking grain. A hen bird, 

 shot June 18, 1903, in a field of ripe wheat, 

 however, had much grain in its crop, though 

 whether it obtained the food from standing 

 stalks or from kernels dropped on the ground 

 was not known. As the Bobwhite usually 

 feeds on the ground, the latter source appears 

 the more probable. Farmers whom the writer 

 has consulted, who were well aware that gold- 

 finches feed on ripening oats, and that red- 

 winged blackbirds ruin w T hole fields of sweet 

 corn, say that the Bobwhite does no harm to 

 standing wheat or other standing grain. 



The bird is, however, a notorious stubble 

 feeder. Where fields of wheat stubble sup- 

 port a rank growth of ragweed, as in some of 

 the Eastern States, the sportsman is most 

 likely to find a covey feeding. On the West- 

 ern plains no ragweed grows amid wheat 

 stubble; therefore the birds are more often 

 found in cornfields, where the stalks have been 

 left standing, after the removal of the ears. 



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