PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION. 21 



and raising its young ; and in a letter to the writer, dated September 

 2, 1904, G. W. Jack, of Shreveport, La., says : 



I now have a pair of quails (bobwhites) which were trapped last winter 

 and whioh I keep in a large wire coop. They have made a nest in some grass 

 and have laid about 12 or 15 eggs. 



The eggs were laid very irregularly, not more than two or three a week, so 

 that by the time the nest was full the season was far advanced, which perhaps 

 accounts for the female not sitting. The eggs were set under a hen and proved 

 fertile, but the young were eaten by the chicken as fast as they hatched. I 

 concluded that this irregularity or slowness in laying was the result of the lack 

 of insect and other egg-producing food, as the birds subsist almost wholly on 

 grain. Of late, however, they have learned to eat with much relish the yolk of 

 an egg hard boiled. 



The failure of the female to sit was probably due to the unnatural 

 confinement in so small a space, a difficulty which could readily be 

 remedied if attempts to raise quail were made on a large scale. 

 Unquestionably, too, it would be necessary to feed the quail, at least 

 during the nesting period, to a considerable extent upon animal food. 



An instructive account of quail breeding in confinement appears in 

 Forest and Stream for September 28, 1882 (p. 164). The female had 

 been hatched and reared by a bantam hen, and this circumstance has 

 an important bearing on experiments of this kind. It is altogether 

 probable that bobwhites hatched and reared in this way would lend 

 themselves to experiments in propagation far more readily than wild 

 birds trapped for the purpose. 



The Department of Agriculture obtained three pairs of bobwhites 

 from Kansas, which after five months' captivity are almost as 

 wild as when first caged and show no signs of mating. Experiments 

 in the domestication of bobwhite are well worth trying, however, 

 because of the demand from clubs and individuals for live birds to 

 restock their grounds. So great has become the demand in recent 

 years that it is estimated that 200,000 birds would be required 

 annually to fill it. During the spring of 1903 the demand far 

 exceeded the supply, even at $5 a dozen, and sometimes at twice that 

 figure. 



Success in increasing the numbers of bobwhite depends largely on 

 controlling its natural enemies, which include snakes, foxes, weasels, 

 minks, skunks, domestic cats, and certain hawks and owls. Several 

 species of snakes eat its eggs and young. Writing from Texas, 

 Major Bendire says : " The many large rattlesnakes found here are 

 their worst enemies. One killed in May had swallowed five of these 

 birds at one meal ; another had eaten a female, evidently caught on 

 her nest, and half a dozen of her eggs ; a third had taken four bolv 

 whites and a scaled partridge."" In Mecklenburg County, Va., the 



a Life Hist. N. Am. Birds [I], p. 8, 1S92. 



