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ILLINOIS QUAIL 
by JIM LOCKART 
The robin a harbinger of spring? It may be to editorial writers 
and radio commentators, but personally I have a sneaking sus- 
picion that the first robin I see on my front lawn in late February 
or early March is an adventurer who flew up here—then prompt- 
ly returned to display his frozen toenails to his friends, in the 
South, advising them to hang low because it’s still too cold to 
be heading north. 
As, far as | am concerned, it’s still winter until I hear a 
cock quail whistle from the crab apple thicket behind my home. 
Then I know that the sunbeams I[ see are really sunbeams that 
warm Mother Earth, not anemic imitations that merely light a 
few shadowy areas without contributing calories of heat. 
I live in Menard County where the flat land breaks into 
the Sangamon River bottoms. Menard County isn’t considered 
quail country by any means, but all a bobwhite needs to prosper 
is brush next to crop fields and here in the river breaks you see 
this kind of country and you hear quail whistle. 
Quail are residents in every country, but it is in southern 
and western Illinois where you see the barrel-chested, long- 
legged English pointers. When you see this breed of dog in 
numbers you can bet that you are in a land where the words 
bird and bobwhite are synonymous. When we have a succession 
of mild winters, northern bobwhite populations increase. Then 
comes a cold, hard winter with everlasting snows and the quail 
population is decimated. In the central parts of the state and 
to the east, intensive farming has removed the fencerows, briar 
patches, and thickets. When they went so did the quail. 
Even so, there are more quail in Illinots now than when 
Columbus waded ashore to claim the New World for Ferdinand 
and Isabella. But there aren't as many as there were 50 years 
ago, and the chances are that 50 years hence the bobwhite popu- 
lation will be far lower than it is now, unless there is a marked 
change in farming practices. Restocking with game-farm birds, 
predator control, or other panaceas won't help. When you 
clean up the brush, you clean out the bobwhite. It’s that simple. 
Before this land was. settled, bobwhites were confined to 
the edge of the prairie and to the forest openings where the 
thickets grew. They were not abundant in Illinois until the 
settler came with his axe and plow. Then the forest gave way 
to small, stumpy clearings, the tall prairie grasses were re- 
placed by the fields of grain, and quail increased in numbers 
