186 
Bob -White 
Nests and 
Eggs 
States the nest is sometimes made in a cotton-row. It is usually well 
lined and is concealed with grass or stubble. If in a field, or by a road- 
side, it is often placed within a thick tuft of grass, or under a shrub,, 
commonly covered and open at one side, somewhat like the Oven-bird’s 
nest. If situated in the edge of the woods it is made mainly of leaves, 
and the female, while laying, covers the eggs with leaves when she 
quits the nest. If the nest is disturbed by man or animals she is likely 
to desert it ; but Dr. P. L. Hatch found that when he removed the cov- 
ering carefully zmth forceps , and replaced it just as he found it, the bird 
did not abandon its home. 
From eight to eighteen eggs are deposited, but nests have been 
found containing as many as thirty-seven eggs — prob- 
ably the product of two females. The eggs are glossy 
white, sharply pointed at one end, and are packed 
closely in the nest with the points downward. Two broods are sometimes 
reared in a season, but usually the so-called second brood occurs only 
when the first has been destroyed. 
The young are hatched after about twenty-four days of incubation, 
and no chicks are more precocious. They usually remain in the nest 
until the plumage has dried, but most observers agree that they are able 
to run about at once. At the least alarm they squat close to the ground, 
where the eye can hardly detect them. The driver of my heavy farm- 
team once saw a mother Quail fluttering in the road before him, and 
stopped for fear of crushing the young, which were hiding in the road ; 
but the farm-wagon had already killed two that had steadfastly main- 
tained their position in the deep rut until the wheels passed over them. 
This bird is an adept at concealment. A covey will squat on the 
ground and become virtually invisible. I stood talking with a hunter 
one day, years ago, in the South, when my eye caught 
Clever Hiding a slight movement on the ground, and I saw an entire 
flock of Bob-whites sitting in a little circle almost 
beneath my feet, and scarcely concealed by the scanty shrubbery. As my 
eye found them they burst up between us with an explosive roar of 
wings like a feathered bomb-shell, and went whirring away. 
Bob-white seldom migrates except for short distances when in 
search of food; but there is considerable. evidence that occasionally migra- 
tions of some length toward the South take place in autumn. All the 
coveys that I have watched have remained throughout the year in the 
same locality, unless exterminated by a severe winter or by hunters. It 
is well known that in the South a covey has been seen, year after year, 
in a favorite locality for more than a quarter of a century. There the 
Quails increase so fast that they are able to maintain themselves well 
despite many enemies ; but in the North they succumb to the rigors of 
severe winters. 
Bob-white feeds almost entirely on the ground, except when driven 
by deep snows to seek berries and seeds from the shrubbery. Feeding 
by preference in the open, the birds usually keep within a short distance 
