THE BOB -WHITE OR QUAIL 



( Co Units virginiamts. ) 



Hark! what is that sound rising clear not be lost sight of, also, that during 



as a bell across the meadow ? then listen, the breeding season, when the young 



and again in accents clear comes the call birds are being raised, a large number 



ringing over the intervening space ; of insects and insect-larvae are eaten, 

 "bob-white; bob! bob! white." It is The mating season begins about the 



the call note of one of the most familiar first of April and egg-laying about a 



of the game birds, the Quail. Observe month later. The nest is built on the 



him now as he mounts the top rail of ground and is made up of different 



yonder fence, lifts his head with its grasses. It is partly covered over, an 



snow-white throat high in the air and opening being left for entrance and exit, 



again gives vent to his feelings in the The nest is placed in any favorable sit- 



familiar cry. He is a beautiful sight as nation where some measure of protec- 



he perches there clothed in his coat of tion is afforded, such as in a fence cor- 



brown with its gray trimmings. ner, near a stump or in depressions in 



The Quail is a bird of the open clear- grassy clearings. Like all gallinaceous 

 ings or bushy tracts of country, and is birds, the Quail is a prolific ^gg layer, 

 seldom or never found in woodlands, the set consisting of from ten to twenty- 

 Like other native birds it follows closely five eggs, the average being about fif- 

 in the wake of civilization and has spread teen. The eggs are perfectly white and 

 from the natural clearings along river measure about an inch and a quarter in 

 valleys and on prairies to the clearings length by less than an inch in width, 

 made by men. Here it has thriven and Incubation requires about four weeks 

 were it not for the omnivorous sports- time. Unlike the young of passerine 

 man the Quails would be almost as com- and some other groups of birds, the 

 mon as chickens. newly hatched Quail, as well as . other 

 *The food habits of this bird are inter- gallinaceous birds, are able to take care 

 esting. Its diet is quite varied, includ- of themselves as soon as hatched, and 

 ing such grains and other crop seeds as do not require the parents to feed them 

 oats, barely, rye, wheat and corn. The as do the young of the higher birds, the 

 seed of noxious and other plants, such nest's of which are mostly built in trees 

 as smart-weed, rag-weed, partridge ber- and bushes for protection against pre- 

 ries and wild grapes are also eaten, many daceous animals. The mother con- • 

 of them being gathered in the fields ducts the young Quails about much 

 while feeding upon the scattered grain as does the old hen her chickens, 

 seed. Grass and some other green food and the young are brooded under her 

 is also eaten as well as various insects, wing as in the case of the domestic fowls, 

 grubs and beetles, which form a goodly The artifice resorted to by the parent 

 part of their food during the breeding when she and her young are surprised 

 season. In winter beechnuts and acorns is interesting and amusing. The young 

 are eaten. The farmer does not seem disappear in every direction as though 

 to value this bird as he ought to do. the earth had swallowed them. The 

 While it is true that some grain is eaten, parent meanwhile, flutters along, beating 

 it is also true that the grain is mostly the ground with her wings and showing 

 gathered from the ground and with it every evidence of being sorely wounded, 

 a host of seed of noxious weeds. It She acts in this manner until the pur- 

 would seem from a study of the food suer is a considerable distance from the 

 habits of the Quail that a flock or two in spot where her chickens are, when she 

 a wheat or corn field would be a boon suddenly takes wing or runs swiftly 

 rather than a curse. The fact should along and disappears, rejoining her 



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