178 SUMMER FARE OF THE QUAIL. 



females will sit side by side on the eggs — too many in number to be kept 

 warm by a single breast. 



Meanwhile the husband remains close by, chirping in a low tone, and 

 at frequent intervals making the field ring with his sonorous whistle. 

 He is exceedingly watchful, and if a human being approaches the nest 

 — after giving the alarm to his partners, who secretly withdraw from the 

 nest — he flings himself upon the ground in front of the intruder, simu- 

 lating lameness or injury, and seeking by every art to attract attention 

 and pursuit, until he has beguiled the enemy far away from his home, 

 when he seeks his own safety in swift flight. The experienced oologist 

 pays no attention to this deceit, but seeing in it only a sure sign that he 

 is near the coveted nest, pursues his search diligently until he succeeds 

 in discovering its whereabouts. 



A second brood is almost invariably reared, and often even a third, 

 the latter not appearing until late in the summer, and hardly getting 

 their growth before snow comes. The species, therefore, if unmolested, 

 would increase with great rapidity, as has been shown bj' the celerity 

 with which they have replenished an area from which they had been all 

 but exterminated, when -a period of quiet for a season or two had been 

 allowed them. As soon as they leave the shell the young run about in a 

 very lively way, and are in a few days given over to the care of the 

 father, whom they follow about and obey as readily as they did their 

 mother, perhaps because they do not recognize the change of guardians, 

 while she returns to the cares of rearing a second family. 



If ruthless death deprives the little flock of two or three members, the 

 rest, scattered before the gun, will continue calling to one another far into 

 the shades of night. 



During the spring and early summer the quail finds an abundance of 

 food for itself and its young in the larvae of various insects just emerging 

 from the earth, the succulent shoots of growing plants, and such seeds 

 as they can find ; later they are supplied with strawberries, blueberries, 

 huckleberries, and various other wild fruits ; and in August feed upon 

 grasshoppers, when they become fat. Then the seeds ripen, acorns and 

 beech-nuts fall, many late berries still hang upon the stems, the stubble- 

 fields are full of scattered wheat, rye, barle} 7 , and maize, insects are plenty 

 upon the ground, and so the quail is feasted before the winter begins, 

 until he becomes of that delectable plumpness esteemed by ion vivants. 



Attaining their full growth and final adult plumage by the end of 

 September (at least in the case of the earlier broods), the season of play 

 for the partridges and sport for the gunner has come. 



