Bob White. 223 
call attention to his personal attractiveness, Bob White, it 
would appear, becomes suddenly conscious of his comely 
looks and excellent voice. In a dignified manner, with head 
erect, he walks proudly about, inviting the opposite sex to 
view him at his best. From the orchard gate he calls a 
saucy good morning to the farmer, knowing that the law 
holds its gis over him at this time, but he keeps an eye to 
hawks, cats and other predatory animals that respect neither 
time, place nor season. He is polygamous, willing to assume 
any amount of family responsibility, and will help to rear 
two, or even three, broods a year, a successful pair often 
turning out twenty-five young in a season. It is not an 
uncommon occurrence to find a covey of little cheepers, 
scarcely able to fly, as late as November. 
Although paired so early, the Quails do not proceed to the 
business of nidification in the central part of their range 
until about the middle of May. The leeward side of some 
dense tussock of grass, a mouldering stump ina wild, matted 
meadow, the woody margin of a clover field or orchard, or an 
old pasture overgrown with bramble thickets, are situations 
commonly chosen, the female, as is her undoubted right, 
taking the lead in fixing upon the site. An artificial bed 
of grasses and vegetable trash, filling a shallow depression, 
is the nest. Sometimes it is placed so as to be concealed by 
overarching grasses, through which a regular tunnel, several 
feet in length, conducts to the sanctum; and, at other times, 
is only covered with leaves and straw, which the birds them- 
selves have rudely adjusted. The nest, which is constructed 
solely by the females of the family, varies in dimensions 
according to the number of this sex that anticipate using it, 
the male in the meantime going about in quest of food, or 
sitting upon a low twig close by, cheering his wives by his 
trisyllabic note, and very faithfully warning them of the 
imminence of danger. 
The work is prosecuted with considerable zeal, three days 
at farthest sufficing to make the nest ready for the first egg, 
