Food of Bobwhite. 
In the Journal of Economic Entomology for 
June, Miss Margaret Morse Nice, of Clark Uni¬ 
versity, Worcester, Mass., prints an extraordi¬ 
narily interesting paper on the “Food of the 
Bobwhite,” which amply justifies all that has 
been said about the usefulness of this favorite 
of the sportsman. 
Much guessing has been done and many esti¬ 
mates made as to the value of the services per¬ 
formed by various wild birds, but precise knowl¬ 
edge on this point has always been lacking. 
Some years ago the late Dr. Sylvester D. Judd 
prepared two interesting bulletins on the “Bob- 
white and Other Quails of the United States,” 
and on the “Economic Value of the Bobwhite,” 
which gave much information on the bird’s food. 
He drew his conclusions from stomachs taken 
from birds collected in twenty-one States, and 
his investigations were useful, but they dealt 
merely with the food of a single day. Miss 
Nice has taken the living birds—tame ones reared 
artificially—has observed what the birds ate 
and liked, and has experimented in feeding them 
these foods, weighing and counting the seeds and 
insects consumed. Of a certain bobwhite she 
says: “When he was a month old he was taken 
into the garden or fields every few days, and 
watched to see what he would eat. He was 
given no weed seeds until after he had found 
and eaten them out-of-doors. He would experi¬ 
ment on many things that were not eatable, and 
if he had been out for half a day instead of less 
than an hour at a time, and if he had been taken 
to more places to find weeds, undoubtedly he 
would have eaten a greater variety.” This bird 
seemed to like especially barnyard grass, chick 
weed, pigeon grass, rag weed and yellow sorrel. 
He was fond also of cinque foil, lamb’s quar¬ 
ters, pepper grass, pigweed, plantain, rabbit’s 
foot clover and red sorrel. 
Miss Nice watched a bird, and counted while 
he ate more than 2,000 seeds of chick weed. “In 
order to find out how many seeds of one kind 
a bobwhite would eat in a day, the following 
tests were made. A weighed amount of clean 
weed seeds was put into a box, which was set 
inside a larger box, so that any seed scratched 
out would be caught and all that the birds did 
not eat, weighed. One gram of each kind of 
seed was counted. Two birds were used in the 
feeding test. They had nothing but green food 
to eat beside the weed seeds.” 
A list is given of the number of seeds eaten 
by one of these birds in a day. It includes 2,500 
seeds of barnyard grass, 10,000 of evening prim¬ 
rose, 15,000 lamb’s quarters, 30,000 rabbit’s foot 
clover and many others. It will be remembered 
that Dr. Judd, founding his estimates on in¬ 
quiries made in Virginia, inferred that the total 
consumption of weed seeds by bobwhite in that 
State from Sept. 1 to April 30, amounts to 573 
tons. 
Among the tests made by Miss Nice to show 
the consumption of weed seed by bobwhite are 
these, it being understood that fifteen grams is 
a little more than half an ounce. Here are some 
of the observations: 
Four birds ate 60 grams of weed seeds in one 
day in November. 
Two birds ate 30 grams of weed seeds in one 
day in November. 
One bird ate 16.5 grams of weed seed and 
grain in one day in December. 
Other birds ate from 12 to 21 grams of weed 
seeds and grain in October. All these were in¬ 
door feedings. In February twelve birds in one 
day, out of doors, ate 180 grams of weed seeds. 
In other words the average quail eats half an 
ounce of weed seeds daily. 
Of injurious insects bobwhite destroys a great 
many, some of which are grasshoppers, chinch 
bugs, squash bugs, aphids, army worms, cut 
worms, potato beetles and cotton boll weevils. 
The quail during the first months of his life 
feeds chiefly on insects, devouring daily during 
a part of the time nearly or quite half his weight 
in insects. 
The summary of the observations shows that 
bobwhite is known to eat 129 different kinds of 
weed seeds, consuming half an ounce of weed 
seed daily through the winter. Of the 135 sorts 
of insects eaten, many are most injurious. Well 
founded and conservative estimates from these 
observations show that bobwhite during a year 
eats about five pounds of insects and nine and 
three-quarter pounds of weed seeds. When we 
consider that five pounds of insects means more 
than 65,000 individuals, which would be repro¬ 
ducing their kind all through the summer, and 
that the weight of weed seeds mentioned is over 
5,000,000 seeds—enough to seed a vast area of 
territory—we can form some faint idea of the 
quail’s usefulness to agriculture and to the coun¬ 
try. 
Studying the iStarling. 
Edward Howe Forbush, State Ornithologist of 
Massachusetts, is investigating the present status 
of the European starling ( Sturnus vulgaris), 
which has appeared in some numbers in Massa¬ 
chusetts and other Atlantic States, and desires 
information about it. He has sent out a letter 
asking observers to reply to the following ques¬ 
tions : 
(1) Has the starling appeared in your 
vicinity; if so, in any considerable numbers? 
(2) Is it increasing in numbers? 
(3) How many broods does it raise in a 
season ? 
(4) Is it destructive to any of the products 
of the farmer or fruit grower? If so in what 
way? 
(5) Does it molest or drive out the native 
birds? 
(6) Is it beneficial in any way, and if so, 
how ? 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
Wild Ducks on the Farm.—111. 
In Great Britain, where the propagation of 
game birds for shooting purposes has reached 
its highest development, wild ducks are home¬ 
reared in great numbers, and with great success. 
On the grounds where they were hatched and 
brought up, they are absolutely confident and 
without fear, and the same is true of places at 
a distance to which they are accustomed to re¬ 
sort for food. In neither of such places are 
they ever unnecessarily disturbed or frightened. 
Between these two resorts, however, they pass 
backward and forward by regular lines of flight, 
much in the same way as which in the Western 
country we often see birds fly from one lake to 
another. On these lines of flight it is customary 
to build what there are called “butts,” but which 
in the United States we would call blinds, and 
in these butts the shooter takes his stand with 
his guns and often with a man to wait on him 
and to load for him. As the birds fly over the 
butts, usually within easy gunshot, the gunners 
kill them as they can, the shooting being care¬ 
fully regulated. This is what we in the United 
States call “pass shooting.” 
Reference has already been made to the semi¬ 
domestication of the unconfined eider ducks in 
Norway, Iceland and Greenland, and of another 
species on some of the islands off the western 
coast of Jutland, and it has been found equally 
possible in England to tame ducks of other 
species so that they pay little or no attention to 
man. Comparatively little has been written 
about this, but a tiny book by Captain Oates 
gives very briefly admirable accounts of his ex¬ 
perience in making successful efforts at wild 
duck breeding, and in this little book many very 
useful suggestions may be found. 
Assuming that the prospective wildfowl breeder 
has secured a small flock of wildfowl and has 
two or three laying ducks—or even if he has 
nothing more than a setting of wild -duck eggs— 
the following suggestions will be helpful: 
It has been said that on account of their un¬ 
usual surroundings, ducks sometimes fail to pre¬ 
pare a nest, and may drop their eggs here and 
there in the water or on the shore. It may 
also happen that, for some cause or other, a 
duck may unexpectedly desert a clutch of eggs 
on which she has been setting in most matronly 
fashion. It will be necessary to be on the watch 
for anything of this kind and to be prepared to 
hatch the eggs artificially. Probably the best 
way to do this is by means of a hen, yet many 
hens are careless mothers. In getting off and 
on the nest, and in uneasily stirrng about while 
on it, they may crack or even break some 
of the eggs that are so highly valued. While 
this cannot be altogether avoided, the percentage 
of broken eggs may be in some degree lessened 
by selecting hens of moderate size, and if pos¬ 
sible quiet disposition for the incubation of your 
wildfowl’s eggs. During the time that the hen 
is sitting, the eggs should be sprinkled with warm 
water, perhaps not every day, but at least every 
other day. 
