38 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. 



In the present investigation 116 species have been noted, and further 

 study will doubtless greatly increase the number. Moreover, the 

 large proportion of injurious insects habitually eaten renders the 

 services of this bird more valuable than those of many birds whose 

 percentage of insect food, though greater, includes a smaller propor- 

 tion of injurious species. Conspicuous among the pests destroyed 

 are the Colorado potato beetle, twelve-spotted cucumber beetle, bean 

 leaf-beetle, squash ladybird, wireworms and their beetle, and May 

 beetles. Its food also includes such weevils as corn billbugs, imbri- 

 cated snout beetle, clover leaf weevil, cotton boll weevil; also the 

 striped garden caterpillar, army worm, cotton bollworm, and various 

 species of cutworms; also the corn-louse ants, red-legged grasshopper, 

 Rocky Mountain locust, and chinch bug. The bobwhite does not 

 merely sample these species, as do many other birds; it eats 

 some of them in considerable numbers, for crops examined have 

 contained, respectively, a dozen cutworms, an equal number of army 

 worms, 30 Rocky Mountain locusts, and 47 cotton boll weevils. This 

 bird also destroys striped cucumber beetles by the score, potato beetles 

 by the hundred, and chinch bugs in great numbers. From June to 

 August, inclusive, insects and their allies form, as previously men- 

 tioned, about a third of the food: Of this beetles make up nearly 

 half, or 15.37 per cent; bugs, 8.54 per cent; caterpillars, 1.37 per cent; 

 grasshoppers, 6.93 per cent; miscellaneous insects, 1.33 per cent, and 

 spiders, with other invertebrates, 2.43 per cent. 



BEETLES EATEN. 



The beetles most largely destroyed are ground beetles, leaf-eating 

 beetles, and weevils. Naturally, because of the terrestrial habits of 

 the bobwhite, ground beetles, in spite of their vile odor and irritating 

 secretions, are picked up oftener than the other kinds. Experiments 

 with caged birds prove that even the most pungent forms are relished. 

 Ground beetles are numerous in species and superabundant in indi- 

 viduals. One can form no adequate idea of their numbers except at 

 night. Arc lights kill them by thousands. The writer has known 

 one species [liarpalus pennsylvanicus) to enter open windows in the 

 evening in swarms. They have an irritating secretion, which if 

 applied to the skin soon raises a blister. Ground beetles are more or 

 less predaceous, hence the whole family was formerly considered 

 beneficial. Later study has resulted in their division into three 

 classes: The most carnivorous species, possessing sharp, curved jaws 

 for capturing and killing other insects; the least predaceous forms, 

 having blunt jaws and eating considerable vegetable matter; and a 

 class intermediate between these two. The first class contains highly 

 beneficial beetles which destroy great numbers of insect pests, whife 

 the blunt-jawed class includes some injurious species that feed on 



