10 
THE BOBWHITE 
so sour milk and sour curds are good to alternate with cus¬ 
tards. If there is no black-head disease, or other fowl ail¬ 
ment about, the chicks may be permitted to forage for them¬ 
selves about the lawn and gardens. If the ground has been 
contaminated with disease germs, they can not be reared 
with hens and must be cared for in brooders and allowed to 
run and forage only where barnyard fowls do not go. 
In brooders, with careful feeding and strict cleanliness, 
bobwhite chicks can be reared as easily as bantams. They 
grow rapidly and need very little care beyond the first 
month. They tame readily, and if, for the first weeks, a 
whistle is used consistently while caring for them, they soon 
come to answer it and follow it as they would the call of 
a parent. After ranging out and filling their crops they 
will fly home to the whistle from a distance of several hun¬ 
dred yards until late in the fall and they are practically full- 
grown. To give the call, hear the cheerful answer, and 
suddenly have the air filled with whirring wings about your 
head as the flock alights at your feet, is a delightful expe¬ 
rience which I hope all my readers may enjoy with flocks 
of their own. I had fully expected to be obliged to pinion 
or clip their wings as they began to use them, but the little 
charmers richly repaid me for not doing so. I am always 
careful, however, to have the home cage the most com¬ 
fortable place they can find. There is always fresh water, 
and their seed mixture to scratch over, a little pile of brush 
and weeds for cover—they love cover as ducks love water— 
and, above all, a tray of fine warm dust. A place with all 
these attractions is a “home” rather than a “cage,” and the 
birds learn to depend upon it. 
I give these hints about rearing the chicks for just one 
