AMERICAN QUAIL 271 



ter names can properly be applied to our Colinus, which should there- 

 fore be known under the distinctive title Bob-white. 



During the nesting season Bob-whites are distributed in pairs 

 through clearings and cultivated fields, The members of a brood 

 constitute a bevy or covey, though occasionally two families or broods 

 are found in one bevy. In the fall they frequent grain fields, but as 

 winter approaches draw in toward thickets and wooded bottom-lands, 

 sometimes passing the coldest weather in boggy alder swamps. They 

 roost on the ground, tail to tail, with heads pointing outward; a bunch 

 of closely huddled forms a living bomb whose explosion is scarcely less 

 startling than that of dynamite manufacture. 



Like most grass-inhabiting birds whose colors harmonize with their 

 surroundings, Bob-whites rely on this protective resemblance to escape 

 detection, and take wing only as a last resort. Sometimes they take 

 refuge in trees, but usually they head for wooded cover, where they 

 remain if the growth is dense, but if it is open they generally run the 

 moment they touch the ground. 



About May 1 they begin to pair, and rival males may then be seen 

 battling for mates like diminutive gamecocks. The name "Bob-white" 

 originated in the spring call of the male. Mounting a fence or ascend- 

 ing to the lower branches of a tree, he whistles the two clear musical, 

 ringing notes Bob-white! Sometimes they are preceded by a lower one 

 which can be heard only when one is near the singer. After the breeding 

 season, when the birds are in bevies, their notes are changed to what 

 sportsmen term "scatter calls." Not long after a bevy has been flushed 

 and perhaps widely scattered, the members of the disunited family 

 may be heard signaling to one another in sweet minor calls of two and 

 three notes, when one can easily imagine them saying "Where are you?" 

 "Where are you?" When excited they also utter low, twittering notes. 



1905. JUDD, S. D., Bull. 21, Biol. Surv. (food). 



289a. C. v. floridanus (Cones). FLORIDA BOB-WHITE. Similar to the 

 preceding, but smaller, the plumage throughout darker, the black of the 

 back more extensive, the rump and upper tail-coverts grayer, the black 

 throat-band wider and sometimes reaching down upon the breast, the rufous- 

 chestnut of the sides more extensive, the black bars of the breast and belly 

 much wider. L., 8'50; W., 4'40; T., 2'50. 



Range. Fla., except extreme northern part. 



Nesting date, Manatee Co., Fla., Apl. 19. 



A common bird throughout the pine-grown portions of the Florida 

 peninsula. It is especially numerous on old plantations, where it fre- 

 quents patches of 'cowpeas.' It resembles the northern Bob-white 

 in habits, but is, I think, more inclined to take to the trees when flushed. 

 I have seen a whole covey fly up into the lofty pine trees, where, squat- 

 ting close to the limbs, they became almost invisible. 



The EUROPEAN or MIGRATORY QUAIL (Coturnix coturnix) has been intro- 

 duced into this country on several occasions, but does not appear to have 

 survived. 



