208 BIRDS 



Just as little chickens follow the old hen about, so downy 

 bob-whites run after both their parents and learn which 

 seeds, grain, insects, and berries they may safely eat. 

 Man, with his gun and dog and mowing machines, is their 

 worst enemy, of course; then come the sly fox and sneak- 

 ing weasel that spring upon them from ambush, and the 

 hawk that drops upon them like a thunderbolt. Birds 

 have enemies above, below, and on every side. Is it any 

 wonder that they are timid and shy? A note of alarm 

 summons the chicks, half-running, half-flying, to huddle 

 close to their mother or to talce shelter beneath her short 

 wings. When she is busy sitting on a second or third 

 clutch of eggs, it is Bob himself, a pattern of all the do- 

 mestic virtues, who takes f uU charge of the family. When 

 the last chicks are ready to join their older brothers and 

 sisters, the bevy may contain three or four dozen birds. At 

 bedtime they squat in a circle on the ground, tails toward 

 the centre of the ring, heads pointing outward to detect an 

 enemy coming from any direction. As if their vigilance 

 were not enough, Bob usually remains outside the ring to 

 act as sentinel. At the sign of danger the bunch of birds 

 will rise with loud whirring of the wings, as suddenly as a 

 bomb might burst. 



The whir-r-r-r-r-r-r, indicates something of the speed at 

 which the bob-whites rush through the air. Rising at a 

 considerable angle from the ground, on stiff, set, short 

 wings, the birds, heading for a wooded cover, are off in a 

 strjmg-out line that only the tyro imagines makes an easy 

 target. Suddenly dropping all at once and not far from 

 each other, squatting close, in the confidence inspired by the 

 perfect mimicry of their plumage with their surroundings, 

 each bird must be almost trodden upon before it will rise to 



