106 



BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



leaves in the top of an oak tree, he raised his gun quickly and fired into 

 the leaves when to his astonishment down came fourteen partridges 

 dead and wounded. Partridges breed readily in confinement, and oc- 

 casionally, though rarely, become quite tame. 



Although Quail are more or less common in nearly all counties of the 

 commonwealth I have found them more abundant, in the hunting season, 

 at different points along the Cumberland Valley railroad, the Northern 

 Central railroad, and the Harrisburg and Gettysburg railroad (in Frank- 

 lin, Cumberland, Adams and York counties) than elsewhere in the state. 

 Good Quail shooting is also to be had, it is said, in certain sections of 

 Mercer, Crawford, Lawrence, and some few other of the western and 

 southwestern counties. In many sections of Chester, Delaware and 

 Lancaster counties these birds are much less numerous than they were 

 five or six years ago. 



The food of this species * consists principally of cereals, various small 

 seeds, berries, and in the breeding season insects, chiefly beetles, are 

 taken in limited numbers. B. M. Everhart, the well-known naturalist 

 and botanist, informs me that four or five years ago he examined the 

 stomach-contents of twenty odd Partridges which his brother had shot 

 when on a gunning excursion in the Delaware, and found that all the 

 birds had fed exclusively on the seeds of skunk-cabbage (Symplocarpus 

 fceditus). 



The food of sixteen quails, with date of collection and locality in 

 which they were captured, examined by myself, are given in the follow- 

 ing table : 



* The Florida Bob-white (C. V. floridanus, Coues) subsists to a great extent on different kinds of in- 

 sects. In the months of February. March, April and the first week in May. 1885, when in Florida. 1 ex- 

 amined over one hundred of these quail and found that the greater part of their food consisted of different 

 forms of insect-life, particularly beetles, small flies and " worms. " with frequently small seeds and 

 other kinds of green vegetable substances. In the gizzards of nine of these birds, taken late in April, 

 were found (one or two in each bird) with other food, small batrachians, the proper name of which is 

 unknown to me, but which the natives called sand frogs ' or " rain toads. " 



