BOB-WHITE 



53 



He is more to be valued as an ally of the farmer 

 than as a game bird, although, like chickens, he 

 eats pretty much everything edible. He likes to 

 run through wheat or cowpeas, gleaning; but his 

 services in making away with the pestiferous 

 cotton boll weevil and 

 other harmful insects 

 more than pay his keep. 

 In other ways, too, 

 the Bob - Whites are 

 rather like barn-yard 

 chickens, being scratch- 

 ers. They herd to- 

 gether when the pair- 

 ing season ends, and 

 they share each other's 

 nests. Ten or fifteen 

 eggs is quite enough 

 for one pair of such 

 short wings to cover, 

 but where several of 

 these little hens occupy 

 one nest, the number 

 may reach two or three 

 dozen. The young also resemble Bantam chicks, 

 downy, brown-striped; they are what is called 

 praecocial, that is, precocious children, able to 

 run about and scratch the day after they pip 

 the shell. But the male Bob-White could teach 



BOB WHITE 



Length 10 inches 



