WINTER- KILLING OF BOB- WHITES 
47 
under a log. Crowded up into the angle formed by the log and the 
ditch bank, four birds succumbed. After daybreak, January 18, the 
living left the roost to travel along a brushy fencerow bordering the 
ditch. Four more died enroute in different places in this fencerow 
brush. One of two still alive in the fencerow by early afternoon was 
weak enough to be readily caught by hand for a specimen; the other, 
though weak, escaped capture by hiding in a brush-pile. Another feeble 
flyer arose from the side of a neighboring but well-fed and vigorous 
covey of 18 and was not again seen while alive. 
Counting the captured specimen, carcasses of nine of the 11 birds 
came to hand before scavengers had eaten of them. The hand-caught 
bird, a female, weighed Id 1 grams or about 80 percent "normal” 
weight; the dead (four males, four females) averaged 121.6 grams or 
between 60 percent and 65 percent of their probable full weights. 11 
All had virtually empty alimentary tracts. Remains corresponding to 
the other two individuals of the covey were found too late to ascertain 
their state at time of death. 
The six birds that separated from the doomed covey of 11 lived 
safely by themselves until February 10, thereafter to lose their recog- 
nizable identity by merging with an adjoining population group. 
In another cornfield, there were 31 birds in coveys of 19 and 12 on 
December 31. Only the larger covey was in this field the night of 
January 17 and it had split in two for roosting. Five carcasses were 
found on the main roost under a canopy of snow and weeds, and four 
of these were together. Only one dead bird was on the second roost. 
After leaving their two roosts in the morning, the rest of the covey 
died scattered along the brushy fencerows bordering two sides of the 
field. Of 17 carcasses, five intact ones (all of males) averaged 117.6 
grams. Shortly before the cold snap, a starving bird had been taken 
by a Great Horned Owl (Bubn virr/initiaus). — which essentially completes 
our record for the covey of 19, 
The covey of 12 ranged into the cornfield at irregular intervals but 
depended upon a distant patch of soy beans for food. Between January 
20 and February 2, it (now down to 11 birds) did much moving both 
north and south of the cornfield and over an area of nearly 400 acres; 
from February 16 to 27, what was evidently this covey remained com- 
fortably in the vicinity of a farm yard approximately one and one-half 
miles from the soy bean patch; with the approach of the breeding sea- 
son, some of its members began to pair and to remain somewhat apart 
from the unpaired residum, which latter consisted of five birds on 
March 26. 
The two instances of drastic cold and hunger losses given so far 
differ from others recorded for this region in the suddenness and com- 
pleteness with which the actual mortality took place. The reader may 
see from published examples that mortalities of 60 to 80 percent fre- 
quently result when food supplies are cut off by snow, but the birds 
generally die over a period of a week or two (Errington, 1933: 18, 21, 
27, 28; 1936b: 561). Death or helplessness occurs anywhere from the 
first week (Errington, 1939: 29; Trautman, Bills, and Wickliff, 1939: 
100) to several weeks after the beginning of a food crisis, depending 
principally upon the weather and upon the degree of deprivation suf- 
fered. Except for birds dying in good flesh through exposure to bliz- 
zards (Errington, 1933: 14; Scott, 1937; Leopold, 1937: 410-412; 
Wade, 1938), a progressive increase in susceptibility to cold tends to 
accompany further loss of weight of individuals reduced to 75 or 80 
percent of their full winter weights. The death, during the night of 
January 17 and the morning of January 18, 1940, of Iowa quail down 
to 60 to 65 percent of full weight is therefore to be expected (Erring- 
■i Hnh-u'hili'S ■ j r Vmth ‘■rxt's die Eit ;ihimt the sntne weights ( Erriiigtrcn, ILCJGu). 
