34 BIRDS OF ARKANSAS. 



nearly everywhere, but is now scarce in many localities, particularly 

 near the larger cities. If protected under a properly enforced game 

 law it should remain indefinitely one of the important assets of the 

 State. Gunners of wide experience assert that the quail of Arkansas 

 are noticeably smaller in bulk than those living in the Northern 

 States, but the differences, if any, are too intangible to warrant their 

 separation into a named race. The breeding season of this bird 

 extends from May to September, so that in many instances probably 

 two broods are raised. At Lake City, April 28, some of the birds 

 were paired, and I flushed a male and female from a freshly made 

 nest under an upturned furrow in a plowed field. On September 25 

 (1892), at Fayetteville, Preble noted young quails but a few days 

 old. At Delight, Savage found fresh eggs on August 1 and saw young 

 just able to fly on September 28. 



The food of the bobwhite consists mainly of weed seed, which 

 forms over half of its total food. Grain constitutes only about one- 

 sixth of the total and most of this is waste grain taken from stubble 

 fields. Fruit amounts to about 10 per cent of the total food, and 

 insects to about 15 per cent. 



Ruffed Grouse. Bonasa umbellus. 

 In early times the ruffed grouse, or " pheasant/' as it is called in 

 the South, was probably a common inhabitant of the Ozark region 

 of northwestern Arkansas, but it is now completely exterminated in 

 the State. As long ago as 1883 it was reported by Prof. Harvey to 

 be "very scarce" in the region about Fayetteville, and this, so far as 

 I can find, is the only positive record of the occurrence of the bird in 

 Arkansas. It has become very scarce in Missouri also, but Widmann 

 gives a record for Shannon County as recently as the winter of 1905-6. 



Prairie Chicken. Tympanuchus americanus. 

 Prairie chickens were once locally common in the State, but with 

 the increase of hunters in recent years their numbers have been 

 greatly reduced and in many sections they have been exterminated. 

 Prof. F. L. Harvey, writing in 1883, recorded them as " formerly 

 plentiful but now rare" in the vicinity of Fayetteville. He stated 

 also that they were " resident on the Grand Prairie of southeastern 

 Arkansas, as well as on the prairies south of the Arkansas River." * 

 In a list of birds furnished by Mr. W. A. Monroe in 1884 this species 

 is given as a breeder near Newport. Hollister records it as abundant 

 in 1899 on the Grand Prairie near Stuttgart, but says that none were 

 seen there in 1900. Inquiries which I made at the same place in 

 1910 elicited only the indefinite information that a few could be found 

 in the remoter parts of the region. This valuable bird is so near 

 extinction in the State that only a protective law rigidly enforced 

 for a long term of years can save it from complete extermination. 



i Letter on file in Biological Survey. 



