10 BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA AFFECTING FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



as harmful. His ranch was situated along the hills on the side of a 

 narrow valley, adjacent to wild grazing land with much chaparral 

 and forest, among which the quail lived. In this case the annual 

 loss was estimated at 2 or 3 tons of grapes. 



In the laboratory investigation of the food of the California quail 

 619 stomachs were examined. They were collected in every month 

 except May, but only one was obtained in March. The other months 

 are well represented. Animal food, principally insects, amounts to 

 but 3 percent, and most of this was found in the stomachs of young 

 birds, mere broodlings. Vegetable food amounts to 97 percent and 

 consists mainly of seeds of plants most of which are of noxious or 

 troublesome species. 



Animal food. — Ants appear to be a favorite food. They were found 

 in 82 stomachs, and were eaten by adults as well as by young. They 

 amount, however, to less than 1 percent of the whole diet. The rest 

 of the animal food aggregates a little more than 2 percent and is 

 distributed as follows: Beetles in 30 stomachs, bugs (Hemiptera) in 

 38, caterpillars in 11, grasshoppers in 7, flies in 2, spiders in 6, mille- 

 peds in 1, and snails in 2. The most interesting point in this con- 

 nection was the stomach of a broodling only 3 or 4 days old. Besides 

 several adult Hemiptera, some ants, caterpillars, and spiders, and a 

 few seeds, it contained 280 minute insects, which constituted 76 

 percent of the stomach's contents, and were identified as an imma- 

 ture form of a species of scale, Phenacoccus JieliantJii. 



In this connection the following extract from a letter dated at Los 

 Angeles, Calif., October 28, 1908, by Dr. W. G. Chambers, to the 

 Secretary of Agriculture is interesting: 



Last May during the hatching season one of my female quail died a week prior to 

 completing the hatch. An incandescent light of 8 candlepower was substituted, the 

 result being 15 baby quail, very wild at first, not understanding human sounds 

 or language, but finally becoming as docile as pet chickens. They were raised in 

 my back yard, running at large after the first week. 



A number of Marguerite bushes which grow in profusion in the yard were so infested 

 with black scale that I had decided to uproot them and had postponed doing so, as 

 the little quail worked so persistently among the branches; upon investigation I 

 discovered them eating the scale and twittering happily; they would swallow the 

 fully developed scale and thoroughly clean the branches of all those undeveloped. 



The young in the first week of life eat animal matter to the extent 

 of from 50 to 75 percent of the food, but by the time they are 4 

 weeks old they take little if any more animal food than the adults. 



Vegetable food. — The vegetable part of the quail's food may be 

 divided into fruit, grain, seeds, and forage. Fruit appeared in 106 

 stomachs, and aggregates 2.3 percent of the yearly diet. It was dis- 

 tributed as follows: Grapes in 7 stomachs, prunes in 9, apple in 3, 

 Rubus (blackberry or raspberry) in 4, olive in 1, elderberiy in 21, 

 snowberry in 8, manzanita in 2, huckleberry in 11, and rose-haws in 3. 



