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AMERICAN QUAIL 
271 
ter names can properly be applied to our Colinus, which should there- 
fore be known under the distinctive title Bob- white. 
During the nesting season Bob-whites are distributed in pairs 
through clearings and cultivated fields. The members of a brood 
constitute a bevy or covey, though occasionally two families or broods 
are found in one bevy. In the fall they frequent grain fields, but as 
winter approaches draw in toward thickets and wooded bottom-lands, 
sometimes passing the coldest weather in boggy alder swamps. They 
roost on the ground, tail to tail, with heads pointing outward; a bunch 
of closely huddled forms — a living bomb whose explosion is scarcely less 
startling than that of dynamite manufacture. 
Like most grass-inhabiting birds whose colors harmonize with their 
surroundings, Bob-whites rely on this protective resemblance to escape 
detection, and take wing only as a last resort. Sometimes they take 
refuge in trees, but usually they head for wooded cover, where they 
lemain if the growth is dense, but if it is open they generally run the 
moment they touch the ground. 
About May 1 they begin to pair, and rival males may then be seen 
battling for mates like diminutive gamecocks. The name “Bob-white” 
originated in the spring call of the male. Mounting a fence or ascend- 
ing to the lower branches of a tree, he whistles the two clear musical, 
ringing notes Bob-white! Sometimes they are preceded by a lower one 
which can be heard only when one is near the singer. After the breeding 
season, when the birds are in bevies, their notes are changed to what 
sportsmen term “scatter calls.” Not long after a bevy has been flushed 
and perhaps widely scattered, the members of the disunited family 
may be heard signaling to one another in sweet minor calls of two and 
three notes, when one can easily imagine them saying “ Where are you?” 
“ Where are you?” When excited they also utter low, twittering notes. 
1905. Judd, S. D., Bull. 21, Biol. Surv. (food). 
289a. C. v. floridanus ( Coues ). Florida Bob-white. Similar to the 
preceding, but smaller, the plumage throughout darker, the black of the 
back more extensive, the rump and upper tail-coverts grayer, the black 
throat-band wider and sometimes reaching down upon the breast, the rufous- 
chestnut of the sides more extensive, the black bars of the breast and belly 
much wider. L., 8*50; W., 4*40; T., 2‘50. 
Range. — Fla., except extreme northern part. 
Nesting date , Manatee Co., Fla., Apl. 19. 
A common bird throughout the pine-grown portions of the Florida 
peninsula. It is especially numerous on old plantations, where it fre^ 
quents patches of ‘cowpeas.’ It resembles the northern Bob-white 
in habits, but is, I think, more inclined to take to the trees when flushed. 
I have seen a whole covey fly up into the lofty pine trees, where, squat- 
ting close to the limbs, they became almost invisible. 
The European or Migratory Quail ( Coturnix coturnix) has been intro- 
duced into this country on several occasions, but does not appear to have 
survived. 
