724 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Some Observations on Quail 
This Writer Attacks Those Who Seek to Protect the Birds by “Nature Faking” and False Pretenses 
Last August I reported our game prospects 
for the approaching shooting season very bright. 
Ruffed grouse had been on the increase for a 
number of years, in spite of their favoritism 
with our sportsmen, and the large amount of 
hunting of these noble birds, and the further 
fact that disease, ticks, or some other cause 
greatly decimates their number of young every 
summer. The shooting was good during the 
season, but not up to expectations of those who 
had kept close watch in the breeding season. 
Nearly all sportsmen had ito admit that four 
out of every five partridges bagged were old 
birds, while under normal conditions the very 
reverse should be the case, and four of each 
five be young. What seems puzzling is where 
our breeding stock comes from each spring. 
They may come from territory where shooting 
is not so hard as in this locality, where the cover 
is more difficult to shoot in, or where the disease 
or cause of death among the young is not so 
serious. If such places exist I know not of 
them, nor do any I have consulted. 
The thought has occurred that possibly the 
disease so destructive of the young grouse may 
be the blackhead which has in recent years made 
it so difficult to raise turkeys throughout the 
eastern states. Chickens seem immune to this 
germ disease, and quail appear immune to the 
disease or cause of death of the young grouse. 
Another thought is that possibly the increasing 
acidity of our soils, from which results vegeta¬ 
tion, grain and seeds, impoverished in the al¬ 
kaline or base elements of nutrition. Scientists 
have long known that an acid condition is ob¬ 
noxious in the nutrition of both animals and 
plants, and investigations in recent years at the 
experiment stations of this state and New York 
have demonstrated the fact that blackhead in 
turkeys and white diarrhoea in chicks may be 
in great measure prevented by careful feeding 
to avoid this acidity. 
The number of quail came up fully or beyond 
expectations as voiced in my August report. 
Bevies were exceptionally large, and either their 
enemies were few or the birds are becoming 
expert in escaping them. One of my neighbors 
told me about September he had seen a bevy 
near the line between his farm and mine, the 
largest he had ever seen, fully forty. Soon after, 
then often during and after the shooting season, 
I saw the same bevy, and it was surely a large 
one, twenty-five or more. Shooting was free to 
all comers on my land and adjoining farms, and 
there was more of it than in the five previous 
years combined, yet this bevy came through the 
season with fully eighteen birds. Such has been 
my experience both as a sportsman for forty 
years, and as a land owner granting freedom to 
all who love shooting; yet it is very common 
to read complaints in agricultural papers from 
farmers claiming that sportsmen with dogs get 
every bird when they find a bevy, leaving none 
for seed. These farmers who have no knowl¬ 
edge of actual conditions, believe a hunter can 
By E. P. Robinson. 
by firing both barrels into a flying bevy kill 
nearly half of them at one rise; and it is not at 
all surprising they hold such opinion when a 
quail load should contain from five hundred to 
two thousand pellets of shot, and it is marvel¬ 
ous even to sportsmen, especially beginners, how 
so many pellets may be shot through the “brown” 
of a large bevy and bag not a bird. 
To continue the history of this bevy, it dis¬ 
appeared before the middle of December, as 
quail do every year from my farm. The winter 
was very mild until middle of February, and 
the bevy returned early in that month, fully 
two months earlier than usual. I was agreeably 
surprised on seeing their tracks in the snow, 
and later on flushing them, to find them still 
seventeen strong. On the night of February 13th, 
a six inch snow fell, and on this a rain that 
froze making a crust that would bear the weight 
of a man fully half his steps, then another six 
inches of snow. I feared quail would suffer 
heavy losses, judging many were imprisoned 
under the crust of ice. Inquiring among my 
neighbors I could learn of not a single quail 
being seen after the snow fell. But on the next 
Thursday, nearly a week after the snowfall, I 
saw my bevy from my window among some 
bushes along the roadside. They were very 
active, hunting hurriedly for something eatable, 
some of them jumping one to two feet high 
to weed tops for seeds, and some of them climbed 
all over bushes six to ten feet above the snow, 
finding something apparently, but what I could 
not learn. I resolved then that if they visited 
the place again there would be feed in plenty 
and more nourishing than any weed seeds they 
had been dining on. The next-morning I dug 
the snow from the ground in two places, each 
several feet across, within easy view of my win¬ 
dow, and scattered corn and coarse sand on the 
hare ground. In less than fifteen minutes after 
leaving the corn and sand, on looking out, I 
saw, not my hoped-for quail, but three crows, 
greedily helping themselves. I scared them 
away, put up a scare-crow, a barrel, looking 
like a man in hiding, only his cap showing above 
top edge of barrel, and was bothered no more 
by crows. Near evening the bevy of quail came, 
some of them actually walking or running be¬ 
tween the two feeding places, jumping and fly¬ 
ing to the weed and brush tops as on' the day 
before, yet not finding the feed I had provided 
for them. At this time I succeeded in counting 
them, and found them down only to fifteen, one 
of them a cripple, not able to walk or run rapid¬ 
ly as the others, having to fly often to catch 
the others. 
The next day the luck was better, and they 
found the feeding places, making good use of 
them. All disappeared in the two holes for some 
time, then a few came out, walked a dozen feet 
on top of the snow and huddled in a bunch in 
the sunshine. For an hour they would go back 
and forth from their sun bath to the grain, 
until too full of corn and sand for utterance. 
they ran along the bushy fence row by the road¬ 
side and disappeared until the following day. 1 
scattered more corn and sand daily until the 
snow left us, only a few days later, and the 
birds knew well where to find their dinner. I 
also scattered grain and sand in other holes dug 
by my boy in his play, these within a few feet 
of the house, and it was a pleasure to the whole 
family and a visitor to watch them feeding. The 
birds were all around the house, running across 
the front steps, piazza, and sunning themselves 
protected from the wind beside the house founda¬ 
tion. During the few days of snow the bevy 
lost three more birds, one of them the cripple, 
and there were still a dozen of them when last 
I saw them late in April. 
Another bevy about half a mile away was also 
large, 22 or more at beginning of shooting season, 
and not hunted so hard as the one I have been giv¬ 
ing the history of, had about 19 at end of season, 
and when seen last near end of April had not 
’ess than fifteen birds. There were many other 
bevies within a mile, but none that I kept so 
close a watch on; but from inquiries among 
sportsmen and farmers only a small percentage 
were killed during the shooting season, and 
liberal numbers from nearly every bevy have 
escaped the rigors of winter and their many 
other enemies. 
In talking with a farmer and sportsman who 
lives four miles east of me he said that while 
ten years ago, after two severe winters, it would 
have been -difficult to find one bevy of quail in 
a day’s hunt with a good dog, last fall he be¬ 
lieved he could have found 25 or more bevies. 
How’s that for “vanishing wild life” in a section 
where sportsmen are probably as many to the 
square mile as in any part of our country, elec¬ 
tric cars and autos as common as saloons and 
picture shows, and shooting free on nearly all 
land? It is a matter of cover, feed, winters, 
breeding seasons, vermin, rather than shooting 
that determines the abundance or scarcity of 
quail in any country adapted to them. 
Another sample of nature faking constantly 
is the iterated and reiterated statement that quail 
indulged in by the many enemies of sportsmen 
are great devourers of insects, potato beetles 
and boll weevils especially. The object is to 
prejudice farmers against sportsmen, and in many 
instances the object desired has been accom¬ 
plished. I have grown potatoes for many years 
where quail were abundant, and where the loose 
soil after cultivation would show their tracks, 
yet have never seen quail or their tracks in my 
potato fields in a way to indicate they they care 
for these nauseous bugs. Nor have I ever seen 
any other bird frequenting a potato field or 
ealting the adult beetles or their larva. Not only 
that, any bird that would eat them would be 
poisoned in large numbers, as all successful 
potato growers poison the beetles with paris 
green or arsenate of lead, and to eat the poisoned 
larva would mean death to the eater. 
Further still I have kept quail in captivity from 
