486 
BOB WHITE, THE GAME BIRD OE AMERICA. 
WHITE BOB WHITE. 
mands of the gunner more knowledge of his 
habits in order to find him, and none that 
tests so well the training of a dog and the 
eye and nerve of the sportsman. We should 
be thankful that he, with the black-bass, will 
be spared in the relentless action of that 
artificial selection which is slowly but surely 
taking from us the woodcock, the snipe, the 
grouse, and the wild trout. 
Unlike the grouse and the European quail, 
our little American is a faithful husband and 
devoted father. To find Bob in Mormon 
practices is rare. Should he, however, dis- 
cover that his gallant bearing and spruce at- 
tire have made him doubly beloved, he will 
show impartial devotion to his two spouses. 
From a fence-rail overhead, with his two 
wives on their nests, not two feet apart, he 
will gladden both their little hearts with his 
love-song. But he is naturally a monogamist. 
He selects his mate and makes his courtship 
in the spring, soon after the snow and frost 
have gone, when the willows have turned yel- 
low, while the frogs are piping in the marsh, 
and the Wilson snipe is drumming above the 
meadows. If the wintry storm should come 
back, the mates will re-assemble in a covey 
and keep each other warm o’ nights and hud- 
dle on the sunny slopes during the day. 
In the month of May they build their sim- 
ple nest, formed of a slight depression in the 
ground lined with dried leaves and soft 
grasses. This nest may be found under a tus- 
sock of grass, beneath a small bush, in the 
brier-grown corner of a worm-fence, at the 
foot of an old stump, alongside a log, or often 
in the open fields of wheat or clover. The 
nest is sometimes closed above with stubble 
mingled with the grass tussock or briers, and 
provided with a side entrance ; but the nest 
is as often found open above as closed. 
In this nest the hen-bird lays from one dozen 
to two dozen eggs of a pu^e, brilliant white. 
While the hen is laying and during her time 
of nesting, the cock is the happiest of hus- 
bands. Filled with joy and pride, he sits on the 
low bough of a neighboring tree, or perches on 
the fence-rail quite near his spouse, whom he 
never wearies of telling that he is “ Bob White 
— your Bob White,” in such a brilliant, happy 
