206 BIRDS 



up from the parents' crops, where, mixed with a pecul- 

 iar whitish fluid, it passed among the credulous as 

 "pigeon's milk." Is not this the nearest approach among 

 birds to the mammals' method of feeding their young? 

 Patterns of all domestic virtues, proverbially loving, 

 gentle birds, anatomists tell us their blandness was due 

 not to the cultivation of their moral nature, but to the 

 absence of the gall-bladder! 



Bob-white or Quail 



Length — 9.5 to 10.5 inches. 



Male and Female — ^Upper parts chestnut brown flecked 

 with black, white, and tawny; rump grayish brown, 

 finely mottled, and with a few streaks of blackish; tail 

 ashy, the inner feathers mottled with buff; front of 

 crown, a line from bill beneath the eye, and band on 

 upper breast, black; forehead and stripe over the eye, 

 extending down the side of the neck, white; breast and 

 under parts white or buff, crossed with irregular narrow 

 black lines; feathers on sides and flanks chestnut, with 

 white edges barred with black. The female has fore- 

 head, Une over the eye, and throat, buff, and little or no 

 black on upper breast. Summer birds have blacker 

 crowns and paler buff markings. 



Range— "Eastern United States and southern Ontario, 

 from southern Maine to the South Atlantic and Gulf 

 states; west to central South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, 

 Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. Of late years has grad- 

 ually extended its range westward along Hues of railroad 

 and settlements; also introduced at various points in 



