THE QUAIL'S INSECT FOOD 103 



Summary of the Quail's Insect Food 



Orthoptera — Grasshoppers and locusts 13 species 



Hemiptera — Bugs 24 



Homoptera — Leaf -hoppers and plant lice 6 



Lepidoptera — Moths, caterpillars, cut-worms, etc 19 



Diptera — Flies 8 



Coleoptera — Beetles 61 



Hymenoptera — Ants, wasps, slugs 8 



Other insects 6 



Total 145 



A Few Sample Meals of Insects. — The following are rec- 

 ords of single individual meals of the Bob-White: 



Of grasshoppers, 84; chinch bugs, 100; squash bugs, 12; 

 army worm, 12; cut-worm, 12; mosquitoes, 568 in three hours; 

 cotton boll-weevil, 47; flies, 1,350; rose slugs, 1,286. Mis- 

 cellaneous insects consumed by a laying-hen Quail, 1,532, of 

 which 1,000 were grasshoppers; total weight of the lot, 24.6 

 grams. 



"F. M. Howard, of Beeville, Texas, wrote to the U. S. 

 Bureau of Entomology, that the Bob-Whites shot in his vicin- 

 ity had their crops filled with the weevils. Another farmer re- 

 ported his cotton-fields full of Quail, and an entire absence of 

 weevils." (Texas and Georgia papers please copy.) 



Surely it is unnecessary to point out the logic of the facts 

 recorded above. 



The flesh of this bird is a great table delicacy — ^provided 

 it has not been kept in cold storage. A cold-storage Quail 

 is as good to the taste as a chunk of pressed sawdust, but no 

 better; and as human food an eminent New York physician, 

 Dr. Robert T. Morris, pronounces it unwholesome and danger- 

 ous. In flavor, cold-storage Quail is far inferior to fresh 



