QUAIL, BOBWHITE, PARTRIDGE 59 
which did not leave her perch on a fence post until the 
horse had passed her and I was within four or five feet 
of her. Then she dropped down into the grass close 
to the fence. 
The rallying cry uttered by members of a scattered 
bevy is a call of three notes, but entirely different from 
the mating cry bobwhite. 
I believe the male bobwhite usually takes part in the 
work of incubation, and all writers are agreed that if 
an accident happens to the female, the male incubates 
the eggs and rears the young. When the eggs hatch, 
the little ones, then scarcely larger than bumble-bees, at 
once follow the parents, who look after them with every 
manifestation of affection. Sometimes it happens that 
the farmer while driving his mowing machine through 
the tall grass, may see a male and a female quail rise 
in front of him and flying but a few feet drop down 
again. He knows then that somewhere in the grass 
near his team are the tiny young whose lives are now 
in jeopardy, and often he will turn his horses about 
and go the other way, in order to give the parent birds 
an opportunity to lead their young away from the dan- 
ger spot. Sometimes the little ones may be seen, a 
dozen of them, hurrying after their parents across the 
newly shorn grass, half hidden by its short stems. Oft- 
en the parents strive to lure man or dog away from the 
tender young by feigning injury, and on a signal from 
the mother the young lie close hidden until the danger 
is passed. 
