POOD HABITS. 51 



those bunches which are near or on the ground ; but the damage which they 

 cause seems overestimated. Too often mutilated bunches of grapes are supiiosed 

 to be due to the presence of quail in the vineyard ; but there are other birds and 

 mammals, also, which vary their diet with grapes. I have examined a number 

 of quail's crops and gizzards without finding the presence of grapes, although 

 the birds had been shot near and in vineyards. A quail's crop sent to me 

 from Los Gatos, by Mr. A. H. Hawley, contained twentj'-five small grapes ; 

 others had a few grapes, seeds, and poison-oak berries." 



In the 601 stomachs of the valley quail examined by the Biological 

 Survey grapes formed only 0.01 per cent of the annual food. This 

 small quantity is due, no doubt, to the fact that many of the birds 

 were shot in regions remote from vineyards and many of them during 

 the time when grapes were not in fruit. The total proportion of all 

 kinds of fruit was only 7.60 per cent, an amount so insignificant as to 

 preclude the idea of serious damage. Where the birds are over- 

 abundant and the consequent damage great, trapping or advertising 

 the conditions in sporting papers will probably result in reducing the 

 numbers to normal. Of the 7.60 per cent of fruit, grapes, as before 

 stated, contribute 0.01 per cent; plants of the genus Rhus, mainly 

 Rhus diversiloha, 4.74 per cent, and miscellaneous fruit, prunes, and 

 vaccinium, 2.85 per cent. The maximum quantity of fruit, amount- 

 ing to 32.40 per cent for the month, was taken in December, after the 

 grapes had been picked. 



The relations of the California quail to grain are of considerable 

 economic importance. W. T. Craig, of San Francisco, writes to the 

 Department of Agriculture : " I have observed the quail enter a field 

 of wheat to the number of thousands, and had they not been driven 

 away they would have destroyed the whole crop."' No other reports 

 to the Biological Survey show the danger to grain from this quail to 

 be so serious, but data at hand show that it does more or less damage 

 to germinating grain. Two quail shot by Walter E. Bryant on a 

 newly-sown grain field had eaten, respectively, 185 kernels and 210 

 kernels of barley." Barley is important in California, where it is 

 grown for hay, for grain feed, and for beer making. There is, how- 

 ever, much volunteer barley, which many species of birds feed on 

 and thus do good rather than harm. It is probable that quail do 

 little or no harm to barley at harvest time, and the waste grain that 

 they subsequently gather in stubble fields has no positive value. Of 

 the yearly food of the 601 quail examined 6.18 per cent was grain, 

 divided as follows: Barley, 4.58 per cent; wheat, 0.44 per cent; 

 corn and oats, 1.16 per cent. 



a Zoe, IV, p. 56, 189.3. " Zoe, IV, p. 55, 1893. 



