June i8, 1904.I 
present investigation, 116 species of insects have been 
noted as entering into the diet, a number that will prob- 
ably be greatly augmented by further knowledge. Further- 
niore, the proportion of injurious insects habitually eaten 
by the Bob White makes its service as a destroyer of in- 
sects more valuable than those of many birds whose per- 
centage of insect food, though greater, includes a smaller 
proportion of injurious species. Conspicuous among the 
pests which the Bob White destroys are the potato beetle, 
the i2-spotted cucumber beetle, the bean-leaf beetle, the 
.squash ladybird, wireworms and their beetles, May-beetles, 
such weevils as the corn-hill bug, the imbricated snout- 
beetle, the clover leaf weevil, and the Mexican cotton boll- 
weevil; the striped garden caterpillar, the army worm, the 
cotton worm, the boll worm, various species of cutworms, 
the corn-louse -ant, the red-legged grasshopper, the Rocky 
Mountain locust, and the cinch bug. Some of these pests 
are relished, for a dozen army worms or cutworms are 
frequently eaten at a meal. Thirty Rocky Mountain 
locusts have been found in a single crop. Weevils are 
greatly sought after, forty-seven cotton boll-weevils hav- 
ing been eaten in a morning by one Bob White. Striped 
cucumber beetles are destroyed by the score, potato beetles 
by the hundred, and cinch bugs by the tablespoonful. 
From May to August, inclusive, beetles form 17.9 per 
cent, of the'food of the Bob White; bugs, 6.2 per cent; 
caterpillars, 2.4 per cent. ; grasshoppers, 2.3 per cent. ; mis- 
cellaneous insects, 0.8 per cent., and spiders and other 
invertebrates, 1.9 per cent. 
The losses caused by some of these pests show how de- 
sirable it is to protect a bird that habitually destroys them. 
The Mexican cotton boll-weevil damages the cotton crop 
to the extent of $15,000,000 a year ; the potato beetle lops 
off $10,000,000 from the value of the potato crop, and the 
cotton worm has been known to cause in a year a loss of 
$30,000,000. The cinch bug and the Rocky Mountain 
locust, scourges that leave desolation in their path, have 
each caused in certain years a loss of $100,000,000. 
By far the greatest insect destruction by the Bob White 
occurs during the breeding season. Not only does a third 
of the food of the adult birds then consist of insects, as 
has been stated, but their growing broods consume insects 
in enormous quantities. The food of the young of practi- 
cally all land birds contains a much greater percentage of 
insects than that of the mature birds ; and the amount of 
food the young require is immense in proportion to their 
size. No stomachs of young Bob Whites have been ex- 
amined «in^ this investigation, but 19 droppings that were 
collected from two broods of chicks, on July 24, 1902, dis- 
closed a purely insectivorous diet. 
Grain. 
An impression prevails among sportsmen who have 
bagged most of their game on the stubble field that the 
Bob White eats little else than grain. The analysis given 
Catching the Poacher. 
It was in 1881, and I was' at that time Lieutenant of the 
I2th Regiment of Dragoons. Having been always , a pas- 
sionate hunter, I had the .good fortune to.be invited tc 
hunt on the domain of one of the best friends of my 
youth, W. von W. I never had seen the. hunting grounds 
of my friend, but I had heard from others that they were 
famous for the number of deer (Rehe), and this and the 
hearty welcome I received put me into a state of extreme 
happiness and expectation. 
But as my arrival happened at a time when my friend 
was very busy at work which required his personal atten- 
tion, he regretted very much to be unable to accompany 
me on my first deer stalk. "But," he said, "it is not abso- 
lutely necessary that I be with you. The coachman who 
will bring you to the grounds can take you around and 
show you the boundary lines, and any buck (Rehbock) be- 
tween these lines you may shoot at." 
Soon I was in the hunting wagon, and the coachman 
was just gathering reins, when friend W. stopped him and 
said.: "Wait a minute, for I forgot a very important mat- 
ter. That is to hand you this permit, as my forester may 
meet you and " 
"But your forester will surely not take me for a poacher, 
or do I really look like one?" 
"Oh, I don't mean that. But lately a very gentlemanly 
appearing poacher has made us a great deal of trouble by 
killing our best bucks, and so far we have been unable to 
catch him. If you should meet him, be sure you do not let 
him get away." 
"Ridiculous. I'd like to see the fellow get away from 
me. If I only meet him I will deliver him to you, as sure 
a.-> I am born." 
"Ha! ha! Look out, my boy, for this fellow has fooled 
many a keeper." 
Here we separated, and I was rejoicing inwardly to 
perhaps be able to kill a stately buck and to capture a 
poacher, who had managed to escape so often. After the 
coachman had given me the necessary directions, I dis- 
missed him; but my hope in finding a buck or the 
poacher seemed a forlorn one as evening approached, and 
I determined to try a still-hunt. 
FOREST„AND STREAM. 
above shows, however, that grain forms only one-fourth 
of the food. Corn and wheat appear to be eaten in greater 
■quantity than other cereals. The former constitutes 19.14 
per cent, of the food, the latter 3.04 per cent. As experi- 
ments with captive birds fail to show any marked prefer- 
ence for either corn or wheat, the disproportion between 
the two cereals in the usual food is due to some other 
cause, probably the fact that more corn than wheat is 
grown in the part of the country where Bob Whites are 
most abundant. The remaining cereal food, 1.46 per cent, 
of the total, is composed of miscellaneous grain, including 
kaffir corn, sorghum, millet, barley, oats, and rye. 
Grain-eating birds, as a ride, are likely to do much harm 
to crops. They may pull up sprouting grain, plunder the 
stand in.g corn when it is in the milk, or forage among 
the sheaves of the harvest field. The Bob White, how- 
ever, is a notable exception. It is necessarily in the period 
of germination that grain is susceptible of the most serious 
injury. Nevertheless not a single sprouting kernel was 
discovered in the contents of the crops and stomachs ex- 
amined in this investigation. Some field observations 
made in 1899 and 1900 at Marshall Hall, Md., give con- 
firmatory evidence. While crows injured sprouting corn 
so seriously during May that several extensive plantings 
were necessary, the Bob White, which was unusually 
abundant at the same time in the vicinity, was never seen 
to disturb germinating grain. No data are available re- 
garding rye and millet, but in newly sown buckwheat 
fields of Essex county, N. J., which the writer saw 
ravaged by doves, there was no sign of injury by the Bob 
White. Publications on economic ornithology, and reports 
received by the Biological Survey, add testimony of like 
character. It may be safely asserted, therefore, that, so 
far as is at present known, the Bob White does no appre- 
ciable harm to sprouting grain. Damage to grain at any 
other time entails a loss of a comparatively insignificant 
part of the crop. 
In order, however, to learn how far the bird might in- 
jure ripening wheat, observations were made for several 
years at Marshall Hall, Md. During November immense 
flocks of crow blackbirds made such havoc in winter 
wheat that diligent use of the shotgun was necessary to 
save the crop. But no Bob Whites were ever seen in the 
act of taking grain. A hen bird shot June 18, 1903, in a 
field of ripe wheat, however, had much grain in its crop, 
though whether it obtained the food from standing stalks 
or from kernels dropped on the ground, was not known. 
As the Bob White usually feeds on the ground, the latter 
source appears the more probable. Farmers whom the 
writer has consulted, who were well aware that gold- 
fi.nches feed on ripening oats, that English sparrows take 
v/heat, that crows tear open field corn, and that red- 
winged blackbirds ruin whole fields of sweet corn, say 
that the Bob White does no harm to standing wheat or 
other standing grain. 
The bird is, however, a notorious stubble feeder. 
During the day I had found a small alder patch not far 
from a small river, and inside of this patch someone had 
contrived to make a rough board seat, and I concluded 
that perhaps a buck would cross the meadow, and as the 
outlook was good on all sides and the seat was perfectly 
hidden, I crawled into this ambush. 
A deep calm rested over the valleyj. only the murmur- 
ing of the little stream, and the bells .of hoiiie-going cattle 
were the only noises — if noise it were; for it tended only 
to accentuate the quietness even more. Nothing living was 
to be seen, except a butterfly flitting, around some late 
flowers. The insect attracted my attention, because I 
knew a good many butterflies, but I could not make out 
to what class this fellow could belong. When he came 
somewhat nearer, to my surprise I recognized a species 
called Apollo, which is generally only to be found in the 
Alps mountains. Just as I was in the act of leaving my 
hiding place to secure the specimen, a cracking noise be- 
hind arrested my movements. Forgotten is the Apollo, 
the rifle ready, for that could be nothing else tut a herd 
(Rudel) of deer.. But no, it sounded more like footsteps — 
aha ! the sound of a man's voice — deep, powerful : "What 
are you doing in there?" 
Now, this didn't sound to me especially polite; but 
friend W. had described his forester as not very particu- 
larly possessed of this virtue, but as short and gruff. I 
took a good look at the man now before me. A solid built 
figure of middle size, with keen, bold, but pleasant coun- 
tenance; a plain and neat regulation hunting suit; all in 
all of a pleasing appearance. I replied politely: "My 
friend, I am W.'s guest. Here is my permit." 
He looked at me with a cynical smile, and began reading 
the lines, after which his demeanor became decidedly dif- 
ferent. He took off his hat and said : "Excuse me, sir, 
but . Never mind, if we keep on talking here we shall 
keep the deer shy of us, only quick into this bush here." 
In an undertone I asked : "Have I a chance for a shot 
here?" 
"A beautiful buck goes his rounds here." 
This put me in good humor, and I presented a cigar to 
him, but he declined modestly. "Thank you, sir ; but we 
will spoil the sport surely if we smoke here." 
Now, such unselfish behavior I had never experienced. 
601 
Where fields of wheat stubble support a rank growth of 
ragweed, as in some of the Eastern States, the sportsman 
is most likely (o find a covey feeding. On the Western 
plains no ragweed grows amid wheat stubble, therefore 
the birds are more .often found in cornfields where the 
.stalks have been left standing after removal of the ears. 
In such a place at Badger, Neb., six Bob Whites were shot 
in Novemlaer, 1901, whose corn-distended crops contained 
in all 181 kernels. Birds that feed in wheat stubble often 
take from 100 to 200 grains of wheat at a meal. A Bob 
V/hite was taken in December, 1902, at West Appomattox, 
Va., whose crop contained 508 grains of wheat, and was dis- 
tended almost to bursting. This habit of gleaning waste 
grain after harvest is beneficial to the farm, as the ger- 
mination of volunteer grain is not desirable, especially 
when certain insect pests or parasitic fungi are to be com- 
batted. As the scattered kernels are often too far afield 
for domestic poultry to gather, the Bob White's services 
in this respect are especially useful. 
Frwit. 
The Bob White eats fruit to the extent of 8.53 per cent, 
of its diet for the year, a very moderate proportion com- 
pared with the corresponding proportions in the diets of 
the catbird and the cedar bird, in whose food fruit forms 
one-half and three-fourths, respectively, of the whole. 
Although the amount of fruit eaten by the Bob White is 
small, the variety is large. 
The Bob White is seldom troublesome to the horticul- 
turist. Mr. M. B. Waite, of the Department of Agricul- 
ture, has reported its pecking into his ripening strawber- 
ries near Washington ; but, on the other hand, birds that 
were kept for several months in captivity for investiga- ' 
tion, refused strawberries at a time when they were 
hungry. The Bob White is- partial to wild grapes, and so 
might be expected to injure cultivated varieties, espe- 
cially as its California relative, sometimes in. a flock of a 
thousand, plunders vineyards ; but, so far as the writer 
knows, cultivated grapes have sustained no appreciable 
injury from Bob Whites in the East. The period when 
the largest proportion of fruit (23.5 per cent, of the total 
food) is eaten is not the season when man is gathering- 
his fruit, but -is during December, and sumac berries are 
then the fruit mainly eaten. Large quantities of dewber- 
ries, waxmyrtle berries, and bayberries, also appear in the 
food. It may be interesting to note that the Bob White 
is not nearly so. frugivorous as the ruffed grouse. 
Leaves and Buds, 
Neither does the Bob White approach the ruffed grouse 
in destructiveness of leaves, buds, and tender shoots. It 
sometimes eats the leaves of yellow sorrel {Oxalis stricta~) , 
sheep sorrel (Ruinex acctosella), red and white clover 
{Trifolmni pratense and T. repens), and cinquefoil {Po- 
tciiiiUa sp,). Captive birds ate grass, lettuce, and chick- 
weed. 
This had to be rewarded, and I emptied, the contents of 
my cigar case into the man's .hand, and with a wave of 
the hand made it plain to him- that all these costly weeds 
were his. He put them in his pocket with a deep, courtly 
bow. .. 
The next quarter of an hour passed without a sound. 
Then I felt a little pull at my coatsleeve. I turned, my 
companion winked his eyes in a certain direction, and 
there he was — a fine full-grown buck in good shooting dis- 
tance. -To be short, within a few minutes I was standing 
over my dead quarry. Such a beautiful pair of antlers I 
had never seen in my life, and in the joy of niy heart' I 
slipped a tAventy-mark piece into the man's hand, and then 
we emptied a bottle filled with genuine Benedictiner wine 
in celebration of the fine shot. The wine was a present of 
my lovable hostess, Mrs. von W. 
"But now how are we going to get this buck up that 
steep hill? My wagon is waiting for me up there." But 
this noble man of the forest knew his business. The Herr 
need not worry on that account, for he would carry the 
buck on a footpath known to him only to the castle, and 
he would be there inside of two hours. That just suited 
me. The forester tied fore and hindlegs together, swung 
the buck to his shoulders, and disappeared. My mind was 
made up to ask friend W. for the extraordinary fine 
antlers of the buck before he should have a chance to see 
it, for I thought that all friendship would go to pieces 
at the sight of such rare horns, and I would have to be 
somewhat, diplomatic to get them. 
Two hours later I had reported to my friend and wife, 
my fine success, and had also secured consent to my taking 
home the much-coveted antlers. Oniy the buck itself had. 
not made an appearance as yet. 
"Hm ! Where the deuce must your buck be? Wifey is 
getting impatient. The long wait will spoil her cookery.. 
Cannot understand why Heinrich, who has pretty long 
legs, did not show up with the buck as yet." 
"Your forester's name is Heinrich?" 
"Yes." - . 
"But isn't he a man of about my size?" (this confused). 
"What are you talking about? My forester is an old 
grayhead, and his size is six feet two." 
Just at this point a servant announced Forester Hein- 
