30 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. 



the binder, and at Marshall Hall was often seen in the harvest field 

 picking up scattered wheat. It was not observed there on the shocks, 

 appearing to find ay abundance of waste kernels. At corn harvest 

 also bobwhite takes its share from exposed ears ; but the bird is not 

 able to shuck corn, as do the crow and the wild goose. Several crops 

 of ripe oats at Marshall Hall were watched during harvest time arid 

 furnished no evidence against the bobwhite. No report of in]ui'y 

 by it elsewhere at harvest time has come to the Biological Survey, 

 though damage may be done where peculiar local Conditions don join 

 with an overabundance of birds. 



The bobwhite, however, is a persistent stubble feeder. As Mr. 

 Sandys puts it, " He is the gleaner who never reaps, who guards the 

 growing crops, who glories over a bounteous yield, yet is content to 

 watch and wait for those lost grains which fall to him by right." 

 Where fields of wheat stubble support a rank growth of ragweed the 

 sportsman is most likely to find a feeding covey. At Marshall Hall, 

 during September, October, and November, such fields are the favorite 

 haunts of the birds. On this farm corn has a greater acreage than 

 wheat, but the birds are much less often found in corn stubble ; and, 

 as stomach examinations show, they eat much less corn than wheat. 

 Since experiments with captive birds showed no preference for wheat, 

 food other than grain may have kept them on the wheat stubble. 

 Along the Roanoke in Virginia, where wheat is not grown, bobwhites 

 feed in corn fields. 



On the Western prairies, where cornstalks left standing in the fields 

 afford good cover, the birds are more often found in cornfields. Six 

 birds collected from such fields in November, 1891, at Badger, Nebr., 

 contained 181 whole kernels of corn; the smallest number in a crop 

 was 20 and the largest 48. 



It is not unusual to find from 100 to 200 grains of wheat in a crop. 

 A bobwhite shot at West Appomattox, Va., in December, 1902, had 

 its crop distended almost to bursting with 508 grains of wheat. This 

 habit of gleaning Avaste grain after harvest is beneficial to the farm, 

 for volunteer grain is not desirable, especially where certain insect 

 pests or parasitic fungi are to be combated. As the scattered kernels 

 are often too far afield to be gathered by domestic poultry, the serv- 

 ices of the bobwhite in this respect are especially useful. 



The bobwhite sometimes eats the seeds of certain cultivated legu- 

 minous plants. Both the black-eye and the clay cowpeas ( Vigna sinen- 

 sis) have been found in stomachs, and one contained 35 peas of the lat- 

 ter variety. In Westmoreland and Mecklenburg counties, Va.,cowpea 

 patches are favorite resorts for the birds in November and December. 

 Garden peas were found in crops collected by Mr. Walter Hoxie at 

 Frogmore, S. C. IiT rare instances the bobwhite picks up clover 



