330 USEFUL BIRDS. 



Estimating that there are four birds to each square mile in 

 these States, and that each bird consumes half an ounce of 

 weed seed daily from September 1 to April 1, he concludes 

 that one thousand, three hundred and forty-one tons are eaten 

 by Quail annually in the two States; and, as insects form 

 about one- third of the birds' food from June 1 to August 1, 

 he estimates that Quail consume three hundred and forty tons 

 of insects in these States within those two months. 



It is somewhat remarkable that the Quail feeds on most of 

 the superlatively destructive crop and garden pests of North 

 America, among them the Rocky Mountain locust, chinch 

 bug, cotton worm, Mexican cotton boll weevil, army worm, 

 Colorado potato beetle, striped cucumber beetle. May beetle, 

 bean leaf beetle, and several species of grasshoppers. More 

 than one-third of its food for August consists of insects, of 

 which very few are useful species. The Quail eats many 

 ground beetles, but mainly those species which feed to some 

 extent on vegetation, and which become destructive if allowed 

 to increase unduly. It is probably the most effective enemy 

 of the Colorado potato beetle. A correspondent wrote me 

 that he had watched the Quail feeding on potato beetles and 

 other insects on his farm, and believed that each bird raised 

 on his place was worth five dollars to him as an insect killer. 

 He declines to allow any more Quail to be killed on his 

 farm. Dr. Judd says that Mr. C. E. Romaine of Crockett, 

 Tex., wrote that Quail were nesting about his fences and 

 even in his garden, and had kept his potato patch entirely 

 free from the "Colorado potato bug." From seventy-five 

 to over one hundred potato beetles have been found in 

 Quails' stomachs. Clover-leaf beetles, corn-hill bugs, wire- 

 worms, and many other beetles and larvae are eaten. Pro- 

 fessor Aughey found five hundred and thirty-nine locusts in 

 the stomachs of twenty-one birds, or an average of twenty- 

 five apiece. The Bob-white not only finds many cutworms, 

 but picks up the parent moths, as well as ants, flies, and 

 spiders. 



The young are at first fed almost entirely on insect food. 

 Mr. Nash says they eat their own weight of insects daily. 

 As an insect eater the Quail is worth its weight in gold to 



