488 
BOB WHITE, THE GAME BIRD OE AMERICA. 
AT DAWN. 
The cock-bird shares with the hen the 
duties and restraints of incubation. If his 
spouse should desire another brood, he will 
take charge of the half-grown young while 
she makes her second nesting. When the 
second brood appears, it runs with the first, 
and they form together one happy family, and 
remain with their parents till the following 
spring, in the pairing season, when the old 
family ties are severed. 
The devotion of the parents to their un- 
fledged young, and the real affection which 
the members of a family have for one another 
up to the time of their separation in the spring, 
have been so touchingly described by two of 
the most gifted of our writers on field sports, 
that I must here quote them ; especially as 
the writings of W. P. Hawes (“J. Cypress, 
Jr.”) are now rarely met with. He says : 
“ If you would see the purest, the sincerest, the 
most affecting piety of a parent’s love, startle a family 
of young quails and watch the conduct of the mother. 
She will not leave you. No, not she. But she will fall 
at your feet, uttering a noise which none but a dis- 
tressed mother can make, and she will run, and flutter, 
and seem to try to be caught, and cheat your out- 
stretched hand, and affect to be wing-broken, and 
wounded, and yet have just strength to tumble along, 
until she has drawn you, fatigued, a safe distance from 
her threatened children, and the hopes of her young 
heart ; and then she will mount, whirring with glad 
strength, and away through the maze of trees you had 
not seen before, like a close-shot bullet, fly to her skulk- 
ing infants. Listen, now ! Do you hear those three 
half-plaintive notes, quickly and. clearly poured out ? 
She is calling the boys and girls together. She sings 
not now ‘ Bob White ! ’ nor ‘ Ah ! Bob White ! ’ That 
is her husband’s love-call, or his trumpet-blast of defi- 
ance. But she calls sweetly and softly for her lost 
children. Hear them ‘ Peep ! peep ! peep ! ’ at the 
welcome voice of their mother’s love ! They are com- 
ing together. Soon the whole family will meet again.” 
The following is by Henry 'William Her- 
bert (“ Frank Forrester ; 
“ Unlike the young broods of the woodcock, which 
are mute, save the twitter with which they rise, the 
bevies of quail appear to be attached to each other by 
tender affection. If dispersed by accidental causes, 
either in the pursuit of their food, or from being flushed 
l)y some casual intruder, so soon as their first alarm 
has passed over, they begin calling to each other with 
a small, plaintive note, quite different from the amo- 
rous whistle of the male bird, and from their merry, 
day-break cheeping, and each one running toward the 
sound, and repeating it at intervals, they soon collect 
themselves together into one happy little family. 
“ If, however, the ruthless sportsman has been 
