BILDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 331 
the farmer and gardener. If it could be protected and in- 
creased in numbers, and if it could be allowed to come con- 
fidently about the farmstead, perhaps it would become the 
most useful bird of the garden. 
In late spring and early summer its vegetable food is 
largely confined to such seeds as it can pick up, and to 
green grass, chickweed, sorrel, clover and other succulent 
leaves; and some buds. In the perennial problem of weed 
destruction there is no greater ally of the farmer than this 
bird. It eats the seeds of over sixty species of weeds. 
Seeds form over one-half its food, and among them the rag- 
weed seems to be the favorite. As many as two hundred to 
three hundred seeds of smartweed, five hundred of the red 
sorrel, seven hundred of the three-seeded mercury, and one 
thousand of ragweed have been eaten at a meal. According 
to Dr. Judd, five thousand seeds of green foxtail and ten 
thousand of pigweed have been found in a single bird. As 
the fall advances, Quail find acorns and pine seed in the 
woods, and in the thickets they seek wild fruit that nature 
provides for winter bird-fare. Although the Quail feed by 
preference on the ground in winter, when the snow is deep 
they seek shelter in tangles and thickets, where wintering 
berries grow. Wherever the ground is swept bare of snow 
by the wind the Quail wander about, feeding on dried leaves 
of plantain and other plants, with such weed seeds and dried 
grasses as they can find. Mr. William Brewster tells me that 
the native Quail of New England eked out an existence on 
the berries of the red cedar when the snow lay deep on the 
ground, but that the introduced Quail apparently have not 
acquired the habit, and so succumb more readily to the New 
England winter. From all the studies made regarding the 
food of the bird, it is clear that the farmer should never 
shoot it, or allow it to be shot on his land. If the Massa- 
chusetts market must be supplied with Quail, they must be 
reared artificially, for the time is coming when no Quail can 
be obtained from other States. The laws of most States 
now prohibit their shipment to other States, and there are 
not birds enough here to supply a tenth of the demand. 
