PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION. 23 



food and cover. In st'\'ere ^^'inters coveys aro sometimes saved by 

 being trapped and fed in confinement until spring. Naturally tlic 

 birds snifcr most in the northern part of their range, but thci-e nyc. 

 reports of their dcatli from se\'ere and protracted cold in Maryland 

 and Virginia. Sandys says: "The l)irds know when the snow is 

 coming, and tlu-y creei) under the brush, intending to remain there 

 until the weather lias cleared. * * ■ * Then the rain comes and 

 wets the surface all about, then the sleet stiffens it, * * * the 

 cold becomes intense, and every foot of damp snow promptly hardens 

 into solid ice. * * * The quail are now imprisoned beneath a 

 dome of crystal, which may endure for days.'"" H. C. Oberholser 

 says that in severe winters in Wayne County, Ohio, whole coveys 

 are found dead from this cause. Dr. P. L. Hatch re^Dorts that in 

 Minnesota the birds increase in numbers during years with mild win- 

 ters and decrease when the winter is exceptionally severe.'' Wilson 

 Flagg states in Birds and Seasons of Xew England that thousands of 

 bobwhites were destroyed by the deep snows of 1850-57. During the 

 very severe winter of 1903—4 bobAvhites Avere nearly exterminated in 

 portions of Massachusetts. That quail do. not always succumb to 

 exceptional cold appears from the fact that in Susquehanna County, 

 Pa., at an altitude of 2,000 feet, W. "W. Cooke found a covey of a 

 dozen bobwhites apparently in the best of condition on December 9, 

 1902, though a foot of snow covered the ground and the thermometer 

 stood at 20° below zero. 



A study of the winter habits of the bobwhite by the writer in the 

 vicinity of AVashington, D. C., so far has yielded only fragmentary 

 results. In February, 1900, after a foot of siiow had fallen, in a care- 

 ful two days' search he failed to discover even a track of a large 

 covey that u.sually frequented river flats along the Potomac at Mar- 

 shall Hall. The birds must have been under the snow or back in the 

 timber. At Falls Church, Va., after a lighter fall of snow he saw a 

 covey of five moving among briers on the edge of a wood, and 

 their fresh tracks showed that they had been feeding systematically 

 on I'ose hips, but had not ventured from cover. At Cabin John 

 Bridge, Md., after a snowfall of several inches his dog pointed six 

 birds on the south side of a river bluff, where the sua had melted holes 

 in the snow. On one of these bare spots he saw two birds, which 

 rose and were joined by four others. The covey had made wallows 

 2 inches deep in the leaf mold on the bare spots. All the birds had 

 avoided stepj^ing on the snow. At hand was such food as the berries 

 of sumac and the seeds of Galnrtia voluhilis and Chama'christa 

 fascicularis. Examination of the droppings indicated that less than 



a Upland Game F.irtls, p. 70, 1902. 



* Notes on tbe Birds of Minnesota, p. 15.5, 1893, 



5112— No. 21—05 M i 



