16 The Partridge Family 



Quail, when undisturbed, are very regular in 

 their habits, being in this respect not unlike 

 domestic poultry. Shortly after sunrise they are 

 busy seeking food, and after crops are well filled 

 they seek the lounging and dusting places, there 

 to rest and enjoy themselves until time for the 

 afternoon foraging. As dusk approaches they 

 move to the chosen sleeping place, and at this 

 hour there is apt to be considerable calling from 

 one to another. The "roost," if that term may 

 be used, very frequently is in a mat of low cat- 

 briers, or thickly growing weeds. In such shel- 

 ter the birds squat upon the ground, usually in a 

 rough circle with heads pointing out. This, pre- 

 sumably, is a precautionary arrangement against 

 a night attack by some prowling foe. Under 

 ordinary conditions the bevy will return to the 

 same spot for many nights in succession. Proof 

 of this is furnished by the accumulation of 

 droppings, which after a time become quite con- 

 spicuous. The often advanced claim that quail 

 always roost upon the ground is not true. As a 

 rule they do, and in some sorts of country they 

 must, but it is no uncommon thing to find them 

 regularly roosting in such places as a mass of 

 wild grape-vines attached to a fence or tree, in 

 some thick, bushy tree, in an apple tree near the 

 poultry, sometimes in the fowl-house, barn, or 

 stable, on the lower rails of a weedy fence, on 



