The Quail 25 



which even our shrewdest observers do not ap- 

 pear to thoroughly understand. All the wrfter 

 can say about it is that beyond question it takes 

 place ; that it does not seem to be an easy staging 

 toward suitable winter quarters, for the best of 

 ground will be passed by, but rather an uneasy, 

 haphazard drifting about the period of the turn- 

 ing of the leaf. The theory that the disturbance 

 by late harvesting operations, like corn-cutting, 

 starts the birds moving will not hold, for they 

 move from undisturbed territory the same as from 

 any other. The only solution seems to be that the 

 remote ancestors of the quail were migrants and 

 that the old-time instinct has not yet been entirely 

 eradicated. If we knew that the movement 

 always trended in the one direction, the solution 

 of the problem might be more easily attained, but 

 unfortunately the proof of the birds' moving along 

 any defined course appears to be lacking. The 

 fact that these drifting birds seem to be in every 

 case full-grown rather strengthens the theory out- 

 lined. Nor is this theoretical migration to be 

 confounded with the shorter movement toward 

 cover as the cold weather asserts itself. This 

 latter is merely a quest for the warmest available 

 quarters, and is no more migration than is the 

 movement of a fowl which roosts during autumn 

 in an apple tree, but seeks the more comfortable 

 fowl-house when the pinch of winter comes. 



