THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 45 



What About the Quail, Anyway? 



The question of a closed season for quail has been very ac- 

 tively discussed of late because of proposed legislation to that 

 effect. Farming sentiment seems to be strongly for a closed 

 season of indefinite duration. The sportsmen representing the 

 opposition have received much comfort from statements from 

 E. W. Nelson, Chief of the U. S. Biological Survey and Mr. T. 

 Gilbert Pearson, President of the National Association of Audu- 

 bon Societies. Mr. Nelson concludes that quail thrive better 

 under moderate persecution. Mr. Pearson's ideas are set forth 

 in the following quotation from the Illinois Sportsman. 



Quail as a Song Bird 



A concerted effort has been made in several states during 

 the last year to place bob-white on the song bird list. Every 

 sportsman not only opposes this, but naturally resents it. The 

 bob-white is the gamiest of game birds and the sportsmen are 

 the men who have always protected and cared for him. To 

 place him on the song bird list is not to protect him, but to 

 abandon him. Long closed seasons on quail have been shown 

 to be laws on paper only — non-enforceable laws that never 

 bring the results hoped for. 



We are very much pleased to receive a letter from T. Gil- 

 bert Pearson, president of the National Association of Audu- 

 bon Societies, in which he makes it clear that the National 

 Association of Audubon Societies does not desire to see the 

 quail put on the song bird list. Mr. Pearson says in part: 



"A law placing the quail on the song bird list, or in other 

 words giving it perpetual closed season, is likely to have a 

 tendency to defeat the very object for which the bill was 

 enacted. The class of people who have taken most interest 

 in this bird in the United States is the organized sportsmen. 

 In many states these bodies, representing thousands of good, 

 worth-while citizens, in order to perpetuate their opportuni- 

 ties to go afield with gun and dog, have expended much time 

 and large sums of money in feeding quail during the periods 

 of heavy snows and have also been responsible for the intro- 

 duction of tens of thousands of quail for the purpose of re- 

 stocking depleted coveys. Many of these organizations are 

 also active in apprehending and reporting those who kill the 

 quail by illegal methods or at unseasonable times. 



"It is my opinion that especially in many of the northern 

 and central states the quail today would be almost as rare 

 as the passenger pigeon if it had not been for the efforts of 

 the game protective organizations of sportsmen who have long 

 been the chief active force in securing and encouraging the 

 enforcement of laws for its preservation. If in attempting to 

 protect quail the bird is removed for all time from the list of 



