28 Farmers’ Bulletin 630. 
BOBWHITE. 
No bird is better known to country residents than the bobwhite® (see illus- 
tration on title-page). The bird’s cheery calls the year round form part of 
the most pleasant associations of country life, and its neat form and har- 
monious coloration, and especially its confiding habits, make it a general 
favorite. 
Any bushy fence row serves as a retreat for its nest, or for winter shelter, and 
weed-covered fields are its favorite feeding places. Weed seeds form more 
than half the total food and include those of all the worst weed pests of the 
farm. Among them may be mentioned crab, cockspur, witch, and foxtail 
grasses, sheep sorrel, smartweed, bindweed, lamb’s-quarters, pigweeds, corn 
cockle, chickweed, charlock, partridge pea, beggar lice, nail grass, rib grass, rag 
weed, and Spanish needles. 
Acorns, beechnuts, chestnuts, and pine seeds make up about 2.5 per cent of 
the food, and wild fruit about 10 per cent. The fruits include berries of pal- 
metto, smilax, wax myrtle, mulberry, sassafras, blackberries and raspberries, 
rose haws, cherry, sumac, grapes, sour gum, blueberries, honeysuckle, partridge 
berry, and a number of others. The bobwhite feeds to a slight extent upon 
buds and leaves, including those of yellow and red sorrel, cinquefoil, and 
clover. 
Grain forms scarcely more than a sixth of the food, and most of it is taken 
during winter and early spring when nothing but waste grain is available. 
The habit of gleaning this after the harvest is beneficial to the farm, for 
volunteer grain is not desirable, especially where it serves to maintain certain 
insect and fungus pests. Although most of the grain and seed crops grown upon 
the farm are represented in bobwhite’s dietary, no significant damage can be 
attributed to the bird. 
Animal food, chiefly insects, composed nearly a sixth of the bird’s subsistence. 
From June to August, inclusive, when insects are most numerous, their pro- 
portion in the food is about 36 per cent. The variety of insect food is great 
and includes a number of the most destructive agricultural pests. Among 
them may be mentioned the Colorado potato beetle, 12-spotted cucumber beetle, 
bean leaf beetle, squash ladybird, wireworms, May beetles, corn billbugs, 
clover leaf weevil, army worm, bollworm, cutworms, and chinch bug. 
The food habits of the bobwhite undoubtedly are beneficial and the bird 
should be maintained in numbers on every farm. This is not to say that all 
shooting should be prohibited, for the bird is very prolific. But its numbers 
should not be reduced below what the available nesting sites and range will 
support. On the other hand the policy of absolute protection recently adopted 
by one of the States is not called for by strictly economic considerations. 
* Colinus virginianus. 
