112 



Genus — Colinus. Bob^whites. 



289. Bob-white. American quail, fe. — la caille d'amerique. Colinus virginianus. 

 L, 10. Plate IX B. 



Distinctions. Can be mistaken for no other bird in Canada. Size and coloration 

 combined with evident fowl-like character are distinctive. 



Field Marks. Small, partridge-like bird which rises suddenly from the ground and 

 flies with rapid beats and loud reverberating wing-strokes. 



Distribution. The Bob-white and its allied subspecies are distributed over eastern 

 North America, north to and including southern Ontario. 



SUBSPECIES. The subspecies of Bob-white native to eastern Canada is the type 

 form — the Virginia Bob-white. 



The Bob-white occurs in Canada only in southern Ontario where 

 it is known to every country dweller. In autumn the sportsman hunts 

 it with dogs, in spring the ploughman and small boy find its nest in the 

 course of their farm work, and all are familiar with its clear whistle-like 

 call of "Bob-white," or as otherwise interpreted "More-wet." It is not 

 a retiring species that withdraws into the deepest woodland recesses on 

 the advent of cultivation; but it keeps to the clearings, hanging about 

 woodland edges, shrubby fence-lines, or overgrown wastes near to the 

 fields. When food is scarce it will often come into the barnyard and feed 

 with the poultry. Open land is its feeding ground, the brush its refuge 

 from danger. Before the country was cleared, the Bob-white was pro- 

 bably rare in Canada, but advancing settlement opened up new ground 

 for the species. Even in the most southern parts of the country today 

 the Bob-white remains precariously, fluctuating greatly in numbers, 

 and it is evidently hardly suited for this northern limit of its range. It is 

 prolific, however, and favourable winters and a few years of abstention 

 from shooting increase its numbers many times; but coverts are almost 

 invariably overshot and hard winters periodically reduce its numbers. 

 The hardest natural conditions it has to combat are deep snow covering 

 the food supply, and wet sleety weather which not only chills it but seals 

 it under an icy crust when it seeks refuge in the snow at night. The Ring- 

 necked Pheasant, rather extensively introduced as a game-bird, is said 

 with some supporting evidence to be inimical to it. In addition to its 

 sporting value the Bob-white deserves the support of agriculturists from 

 a purely economic standpoint and for this reason might perhaps with 

 advantage be withdrawn from our list of game-birds. 



It has been a common practice to repopulate depleted coverts with 

 birds imported from the southern United States. Whether this introduction 

 of stock, unacclimatized to northern conditions, has weakened the constitu- 

 tion of native birds is still undetermined. Several subspecies of the Bob- 

 white occur in the south and importation has left doubtful the real char- 

 acters of our own original form, which today can be judged only from 

 specimens antedating such introductions. 



Economic Status. The bulk of the Bob-white's food is weed seed. 

 The grain it eats is waste, gleaned from the ground. The insect content, 

 though not especially large, includes some species not ordinarily eaten 

 by other birds and for that reason is specially important. It is one of the 

 few birds that will eat the potato beetle. 



