BOB -WHITE 
By EDWARD HOWE FORBUSH 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 47 
A Bird 
of Good Cheer 
The cheery interrogative call of Bob-white was one of the first dis- 
tinctive sounds of the open field that I knew and loved, as a child, among 
the hills of New England. It was as well known as the morning carol 
of the Robin in the orchard, the drumming of the Ruffed Grouse in the 
wo dps, or the reiterated plaint of the Whip-poor-will on the moonlit door- 
stone. Bob-white was ever an optimist, for even if, 
as the old-fashioned farmers stoutly maintained, his 
call sometimes presaged a storm, the prophecy “more 
wet” was delivered in what seemed so cheerful a frame of mind, and in 
so happy and joyous a tone, as to make rain seem the most desirable 
thing in life. 
Perhaps there is no bird to which the American people are more 
deeply indebted for esthetic and material benefits. He is the most demo- 
cratic and ubiquitous of all our game-birds. He is not a bird of desert, 
wilderness, or mountain-peak, which one must go far to seek. He is a 
bird of the home, the farm, garden, and field ; the friend and companion 
of mankind ; a much-needed helper on the farm ; a destroyer of insect- 
pests and of weeds. He is called Quail in the North and Partridge in 
the South, but everywhere he names himself in his cry — Bob-white. 
When America was first settled Bob-white was found from Maine 
and southern Canada to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. A sociable and 
domestic species, it followed settlement, and now inhabits suitable locali- 
ties in most of the United States. 
Bob-white is cheerful, active, industrious, brave (but quick to learn 
caution where caution is necessary), and good-natured, although in the 
rivalries of the mating-season the males become quarrelsome. Both sexes 
are devoted parents, and the male often takes his wife’s place on the 
nest. In captivity, he has been known to hatch, brood, and care for the 
young. The birds of a covey are very affectionate toward one another. 
They converse in a variety of tender, low, twittering 
tones, sleep side by side in a circular group on the ^Traits* 0 
ground, with heads out, and, if scattered, soon begin 
to call and seek one another, not ceasing until all the surviving members 
of their little company are reunited. 
A mere cavity for a nesting-place is hollowed from the soil under a 
bush or fence, or in the woods, under a decaying log. In the Southern 
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