44 
IOWA BIRD LIFE— XI, 1941 
Many hunters reported difficulty in finding quail coveys, and coveys 
known to have been on farms previous to the legal hunting season could 
not be located after the opening date in mid-November. Quail hunters 
endeavored to explain their failure to find birds by placing the blame 
or loss on predation or disease. Such hunter discussion was undoubtedly 
a factor in reducing the number of hunters taking the field during the 
rest of the open season. 
As no dead quail was found by daily field checks on the Decatur- 
Wayne County area during the fall, when the senior writer resided 
there and was in the field daily, there was little probability of loss 
from any disease such as tularemia. No dead cottontail (Sijlviftifitt# 
ftonthiau.'i mrant.'ui) with tularemia was found on the area after the pre- 
vious May. Cottontails, although scarce on the area in autumn, were 
apparently in good health. Short-eared Owls (Axio f. flam men# ) were 
numerous in November and were suspected by some hunters, without 
direct evidence, to harm Bob- whites. 
An effort to answer the question of the missing coveys of quail was 
made on the Wayne-Decatur County area during mid-December. The 
hunters’ complaint of a covey scarcity rather than a scarcity of birds 
in the coveys suggested that the trouble involved a movement of birds 
rather than an actual decrease in numbers. As previously stated, a 
total of 41 different coveys of quail had been found during the summer 
and autumn. Because many of these coveys were flushed during the 
hunting season, such coveys were counted as present for that period. 
All coveys not observed during the hunting season were searched for 
after the quail season closed. The final tabulation revealed 37 coveys 
as present and 4 coveys missing. Since 90 per cent of the quail coveys 
on the closely observed portions of the area were thus known to have 
been present during the open season there could scarcely have been 
any startling pre-seasonal decrease in the number of coveys of quail. 
The first major cause of unexpectedly poor hunting success in the 
1940 quail season on the area is believed to have been the result of 
'"he storm on November 11. The storm drove the quail into more 
sheltered quarters where the birds limited their activities to smaller 
areas and consequently were difficult to find early in the open season. 
Further, safe in the dense cover, the quail were not easily driven into 
the open to flush as entire coveys for good shooting. Rather, they held 
:ast, flushed around the hunters, got up as singles or a few at a time, 
and generally behaved in ways discouraging to the dogs and the hunters. 
Such hunting is time-consuming, but not productive of good bags. 
Later, as the weather warmed and rains came the Bob-whites moved 
to the grassy hills to be dry. On these hills the birds tended to spread 
out, were difficult to put up, and flushed in small groups of singles, 
pairs and trios. The dogs found the going hard, tired quick] y, and 
flushed but few birds as they ranged over large areas. Frequently one 
heard the small groups of Bob-whites calling to others across the fields, 
but they were found with difficulty and often not scented by good dogs! 
Such hunting, also time-consuming, netted few birds. 
Another factor which certainly influenced hunting success was that 
m 1940 the quail were only about 75 percent as numerous as in 1939, 
according to the population estimates for the two years on the Decatur- 
Wayne County area. Hunters naturally compared the 1940 crop of 
quail to the “bumper” crop of the previous season when the quail 
population was probably near the peak of recent years for southern 
Iowa. 
The experiences encountered on the Decatur- Wayne County area 
were typical of the hunting season in other parts of the Bob-white 
region. Occasional hunters reported a few days of excellent shooting, 
T’he junior writer on 5 days, usually with hunting parties, estimated 
the number of Bob-whites at one-half to three^fourths those of 1939 
