Vo). 9j No. 6 
Page 4 
and the predominating weather conditions were instrumental in determining the date 
on which egg laying began. Collectively, the estimated dates on which the 13 
hens begin laying are believed to be about 2 weeks later than normal and probably 
reflect responses of hen pheasants to the atypically low temperatures that 
characterized the spring of 1966 . 
4. Responses o£ Bobwhites to Habitat Manipul at ion j. a. Ellis 
Management efforts for quail on the Forbes and Dale areas have primarily 
entailed planting annual food patches. This effort included the establishment of 
1 77 food patches comprising 54 acres on Forbes and 51 food patches containing 54 
acres on Dale in 1965- Food items included in the 1 965 plantings were corn, wheat, 
milo, and German millet. 
During the 1965 quail season (November 13 “ December 26), 198 quail crops 
were removed from quail harvested on the Dale and Forbes areas and their contents 
identified. The 10 food items found to occur most frequently in the crops are 
shown in Table 3 . 
Korean lespedeza and acorns were the two food items found most frequently in 
the crops from both the Dale and Forbes areas. These two food items and common 
ragweed were the seeds most frequently found in the crops of quail harvested on 
the areas in 1963 and 1964. All of the food patch items were among the 10 top- 
ranked foods on the Forbes Area in 1965* However, only one of the food patch 
items, German millet, occurred among the 10 top-ranked foods on the Dale Area in 
1965« It appears that maintaining plants such as Korean lespedeza and common 
ragweed which need no cultivation in this area, may be as important in terms of 
the welfare of quail as the establishment of annual food patches. 
Table 3* The 10 top-ranked food items (percent occurrence) found in crops of 
quail harvested on the Dale and Forbes areas in 1 965 . The Dale sample represents 
103 crops (19 empty); the Forbes sample, 95 crops (21 empty). 
Food I terns 
Times 
Represented 
Percent Frequency 
of Occurrence 
Rank 
Korean lespedeza 
(Lespedeza stipulacea) 
Oaks 
(Quercus spp.) 
Common ragweed 
(Ambrosia artemi s i i fol i a) 
Touch-me-not 
( Impatiens pal 1ida) 
Insect fragments 
Fa I 1 panicum 
(Panicum dichotomiflorum) 
Dale Area 
60 
58 
1 
43 
42 
2 
26 
25 
3 
25 
24 
4 
21 
20 
5 
16 
16 
6 
