QUAILOLOGY - DOMESTICATION, ETC. 45 



rats, skunks, mink and insect vermin,[especially lice. Of these 

 however, quail are usually free from if they have plenty of 

 road dust to dust themselves in. 



Contagious diseases— we know of none. Occasionally a bird 

 is lost from old age, accident or improper care. If the houses 

 and runs are kept clean and fresh, well whitewashed or paint- 

 ed; the .water dishes clean, and always filled with fresh water; 

 wholesome food and plenty of grit are fed; and plenty of dust- 

 ing material kept on hand for them, there is little likelihood of 

 disease entering the flock. 



The only report that we have of any affliction is by Lyman 

 Belding of Stockton, California, who states "About one out of 

 ten of the young Plumed Quail in Nevada, Placier, Eldorado 

 and probably other counties in the Sierra Nevadas, are infest- 

 ed with tape worm As I have never found a tape 



worm in an adult I suppose the young afflicted quail die before 

 reaching maturity." 



!g a; Proper Shipping j j ^ 



In the transportation of the quail very few people conceive 

 the idea that a cloth top, or padded top, crate is a necessity to 

 the safety of the birds while enroute. Quail when startled will 

 spring upwards with great force and would injure themselves 

 greatly if protective methods were not taken to guard against 

 such injury. Many quail that are shipped in wooden top crates 

 die from no other cause than that of injury to the head receiv- 

 ed by their springing upward and striking the top of the crate. 

 This, if no other, is the chief thought we want to enforce in 

 this section. Otherwise the crate may be made in any conven- 

 ient form, with means of watering and feeding while enroute. 

 Fasten the water dish stationary in the crate. In a sack place 

 a sufficient quantity of grain to feed the birds while enroute, 



