UNIVERSITY 



OF 



BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 331 



the farmer and gardener. If it could be protected and in- 

 creased in numbers, and if it could be allowed to come con- 

 fidently about the farmstead, perhaps it would become the 

 most useful bird of the garden. 



In late spring and early summer its vegetable food is 

 largely confined to such seeds as it can pick up, and to 

 green grass, chickweed, sorrel, clover and other succulent 

 leaves, and some buds. In the perennial problem of weed 

 destruction there is no greater ally of the farmer than this 

 bird. It eats the seeds of over sixty species of weeds. 

 Seeds form over one-half its food, and among them the rag- 

 weed seems to be the favorite. As many as two hundred to 

 three hundred seeds of smart weed, five hundred of the red 

 sorrel, seven hundred of the three-seeded mercury, and one 

 thousand of ragweed have been eaten at a meal. According 

 to Dr. Judd, five thousand seeds of green foxtail and ten 

 thousand of pigweed have been found in a single bird. As 

 the fall advances, Quail find acorns and pine seed in the 

 woods, and in the thickets they seek wild fruit that nature 

 provides for winter bird-fare. Although the Quail feed by 

 preference on the ground in winter, when the snow is deep 

 they seek shelter in tangles and thickets, where wintering 

 berries grow. Wherever the ground is swept bare of snow 

 by the wind the Quail wander about, feeding on dried leaves 

 of plantain and other plants, with such weed seeds and dried 

 grasses as they can find. Mr. William Brewster tells me that 

 the native Quail of New England eked out an existence on 

 the berries of the red cedar when the snow lay deep on the 

 ground, but that the introduced Quail apparently have not 

 acquired the habit, and so succumb more readily to the New 

 England winter. From all the studies made regarding the 

 food of the bird, it is clear that the farmer should never 

 shoot it, or allow it to be shot on his land. If the Massa- 

 chusetts market must be supplied with Quail, they must be 

 reared artificially, for the time is coming when no Quail can 

 be obtained from other States. The laws of most States 

 now prohibit their shipment to other States, and there are 

 not birds enough here to supply a tenth of the demand. 



