108 THE GAME BREEDER 



storing some of the natural covers and A few rows of corn (field corn, sugar 



foods, as it would be to restore wild corn or pop corn), planted at the sides 



ducks on marshes which have been of the closely cultivated fields will make 



drained. exce:llent covers, especially if weeds, wild 



We should always have in mind the grasses and briars be permitted to grow 



fact that quail need foods and covers at frequent intervals in the corn. The 



during every month of the year. Fields grain can be used for winter feeding and 



which appear to be well adapted to the the stalks can be made into excellent 



birds during the harvest and shooting winter shelters. 



season, when many weeds have sprung The more closely cultivated areas can 



up in the stubbles, soon may be made be made to yield a big crop of quail 



uninhabitable by the plough. Quail can without interfering with the agricultural 



not survive on lands where all covers operations, excepting on the small areas 



are ploughed under leaving no weeds which- must be reserved for nesting and 



and briars or protecting covers or foods feeding grounds for the birds during 



of any kind even at the fences. The the period when the weeds are plowed 



birds are not only exposed to their nat- under and the fields are made uninhabi- 



ural enemies, but also they must starve table. 



when all their natural foods have been It is well known that the conversion 

 destroyed. Quail are protectively marked of grain farms into dairies always re- 

 birds and rely upon concealment to es- suits in a loss of the quail; these birds 

 cape their many enemies. quickly disappear, also, where the lands 



Closely cultivated areas and even grass are laid in grass. A hay-farm cannot be 

 lands and pastures easily can be made expected to yield a good crop of quail 

 safe and attractive by planting strips of unless it be treated as I have suggested, 

 cover and food at the sides of the fields One of our most interesting quails, 

 and by sub-dividing the larger fields with the masked bob- white (a bird very sim- 

 hedges bordered with some of the nat- ilar to our common quail, excepting that 

 ural foods for the quail and briars to the throat of the male is black instead of 

 protect them from enemies. Where a white), became extinct in Southern Ari- 

 farm is owned or rented, especially for zona, not on account of the shooting but 

 shooting, small fields containing a fe\y because its home grounds were over- 

 acres can be planted especially for the stocked with cattle which destroyed its 

 birds and if some old logs, stumps and natural foods and nesting sites. I have 

 other barriers be introduced, about which a record of these birds breeding in a 

 weeds, briars and wild grasses are per- wild state not far from New York in a 

 mitted to grow, many birds .will nest in place where, no doubt, they were intro- 

 such fields and be safe from farm ma- duced by accident, the parent stock be- 

 chinery as well as from many natural ing shipped with some bobwhites trapped 

 enemies which find it almost impossible in Mexico. 



to take quail in briar patches. Quail are Maxwell, in his book about the Eng-- 



especially fond of nesting in such cov- lish partridges, says that farms which 



ers; the logs and stumps affording a once carried a fine head of game soon 



sense of security from a rear attack; became useless for purposes of sport 



the many natural foods and briars make when laid down in grass.. No induce- 



the places especially safe and attractive, ment will persuade partridges to stay 



Small areas, such as are here sug- in any appreciable numbers where the 



gested, may be planted with foods and land is unbroken. The only way to 



covers on grass lands and pastures, but keep up a respectable stock under these 



on grazing lands the feeding and cover conditions is to plough a certain por- 



ground should be protected by fences to tion of the land — about ten acres to 



keep out the animals. Very inexpensive every two hundred of grass is sufiicient 



fences, made of rails or a few strands of — and to grow some cereal crop for the 



wire, are all that are necessary. exclusive benefit of the game. On graz- 



