CORNELL LAB of ORNITHOLOGY € LIBRARY at Sapsucker Woods 2 ; Illustration of Bank Swallow by Louis Agassiz Fuertes LABORATORY OF ORNITHOLOGY CORNELL UNIVERSITY ITHACA, NEW YORK “wii Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022521011 Bull. 17, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. PiaTE I. Fia. 1.—DWELLING HOUSE ON BRYAN Farm. Fig. 2.—VIEW OF THE POTOMAC FROM BRYAN HOMESTEAD, SHOWING FEEDING PLACES OF GULLS, DUCKS, AND OTHER WATERFOWL. Mount Vernon in the distance. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE DIVISION OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEY—-BULLETIN No. 17 C. HART MERRIAM, Chief BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM A LOCAL STUDY OF ECONOMIC ORNITHOLOGY BY SYLVESTER D. JUDD, Ph. D. ASSISTANT, BIOLOGICAL SURVEY PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF Dr. C. HART MERRIAM CHIEF OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEY WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 190% ORN ITH oe GS4{ os ae DSBBIE | LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. U. S. Department or AGRICULTURE, Washington, D. C., July 5, 1902. Srr: I have the honor to transmit herewith, for publication as Bul- letin 17 of the Biological Survey, a report on the Birds of a Maryland Farm, the same being a local study in economic ornithology by one of my assistants, Dr. Sylvester D. Judd. Acknowledgment is made to the Entomologist for assistance in the determination of some of the insects, as well as for the use of certain illustrations. Respectfully, C. Harr Merriam, Chief, Biological Survey. Hon. Jamrs WIson, Secretary of Agriculture. CONTENTS. TD, TntrGd Wet ON... ooisicjecjonsanaiccds deesse seesaw ssemesiossecsseesiee sess Topography of Bryan farm............-----------------+------- Distributionof birds:. .....-<-..<0.60-2cceccesen sess easesenessece Birds that feed in open fields.........----..---------------- Birds that depend on cover......--.------------------------ Birds of less limited distribution................------------ Birds of varied distribution....-......-..-.----------------- Topography of Hungerford farm .........---. ---..------------- Ts, DRBSCCEAGO x Gee scte ecco rotansoca late ucepacain ste ahcrchatursioparat eal ocialeeIeme exis Mia ys HGS i. atc, ctarntaintaiciatereaigig cieterarste aia aratonratotctereialeiangpassammemeiseccins Unifes ted Crops ja saistaartatere. sisted oe anys igieiaietsbsraghrerereicronisieisideaieeeoiarec eis Infested trees and shrubs ...............-------------+--------- Certain destructive insects.........----.----..----2----e- eee eeee Wisef ula nise cts) tac ateiehr a raday aga eae se meee SUMMAry «ogee eens aasenprsearaeenene see soeeee seeks ae eee Hood: of nestlings sri; eer aes aes eee Genetal remarks yoo. ..soseenees se tsegu ese eee a eeceeeeeenees 8 k=] nm RPE Wc gee EY ON Weed destruction by native sparrows Weed destruction by other birds..............-..------.-------- WAT SPCClesis Home Life of Wild Birds, 1901. eBull. 55, N. H. Agr. Expt. Sta., 1898. 44 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. under any circumstances not so desirable as had been anticipated. A 92-inch telescope with a single draw tube proved much more service- able. Working with it, however, is very slow and arduous on account of its limited field and the difficulty of changing the focus quickly. Grasshopper Sparrow.—The difficulties encountered in the use of the telescope in field work may be well shown by a somewhat detailed account of its use in the following instance: On July 9, 1898, a grasshopper sparrow’s nest containing four naked young birds was found in a bunch of rabbit-foot clover in-a timothy field of lot 1, several rods from the cow barn. The male parent was poised on a weed stalk at no great distance, rattling out his dry ditty, never once stopping to help the mother bird, which was making frequent jour- neys for food. The latter, on seeing me, perched on a dead muilein stalk 20 to 30 feet away, instead of carrying to her little ones the mouthful she held. The telescope was immediately focused. It enlarged the mother bird so much that she appeared to be peering in. at the end of the instrument. The object in her bill was seen to be of a delicate green color, but before further observation could be made she flew to the top of a blackberry bush. Here, by fragmentary glimpses, during which it was necessary to change the focus several times, a narrow wing cover and a long, slim leg were discerned, which showed that the insect belonged to the order Orthoptera (grasshop- pers, crickets, etc.). The bird next returned to her perch on the mul- léin stalk, where she remained long enough to enable the telescope to reveal, projecting from the beak on the side opposite the leg and wing, two filiform antenne which exceeded the body in length and furnished the necessary clew to the insect’s identity as a meadow grasshopper. Further observations were made, with the same interruptions and demands upon the patience. In the next two trips she brought the same insects. She next came with a cutworm, then with a chrysalis, and later with two short-horned grasshoppers (Afelanoplus and Disso- tetra). The meagerness of these results, considering the time required for obtaining the information, was due to the restless uneasiness of the grasshopper sparrow and the location of the nest in an open field where no cover for the observer was available to reduce the bird’s apprehension. Observation of a house wren (see p. 45) was conducted under more favorable conditions and was much more satisfactory. No nestling grasshopper sparrows were collected at Marshall Hall, but 14 from other localities have been examined, and diagrams that were made of their food and of that of 10 adults taken at the same time show the great importance of insects in the food of nestlings.“ Orchard Oriole—A few observations were made of a brood of well- feathered orchard orioles in a black-walnut tree near the negro cabin, «These diagrams were published in an article entitled The Food of Nestling Birds, which appeared in the Yearbook of the Dept. of Agriculture for 1900. FOOD OF NESTLINGS. 45 July 18, 1898.. The male parent, a bird in greenish plumage, did not help to provide for the young, but appeared to think that his sole duty consisted in coming to the tree occasionally and singing. The mother worked incessantly. It was difficult to identify what she brought, because she was so shy and remained at the nest so brief atime. I had to stand close to the tree and focus the glass on her when she was nervously hopping from branch to branch. Working under these difficulties I was able to identify but 2 caterpillars, 3 May-flies, 2 short- horned grasshoppers, and 3 meadow grasshoppers. House Wren.—The most satisfactory and continued observations were made June 17, 1899, of some young house wrens that were about three-fourths grown. In this case it was found desirable to remove the nest, which was in a cavity in a locust tree, transfer it to a baking- powder can, and nail the can to the trunk of the tree about 4 feet from the ground. The following is a detailed account of the feeding: Feeding of a brood of house wrens. A. M. A.M. 5.55. Green caterpillar (Heliothis dipsa- | 8.24. May-fly. ceus). 8.29. Brown orthopterous insect. 5.56. May-fly. 8.30. Heliothis dipsaceus. 6.00. May-fly. 8 35. Undetermined. 6.02. Undetermined. 8.38. Caterpillar. 6.05. Heliothis dipsaceus. 8.413. May-fly. (Observations suspended till 7.20 a. m.) | 8.48. May-fly. 7.21. Undetermined. 8.45. Brown caterpillar (cutworm?). 7.23. May-fly. 8.46. Heliothis dipsaceus. (Observations suspended till 7.45 a.m.) | 8.47. Undetermined insect. 7.46. Harvestman (Phalangide). 8.48. Undetermined insect. 7.47. May-fly. 8.49. Undetermined insect. 7.48. Undetermined insect. 8.50. Undetermined insect. 7.49. Urdetermined. 8.523. Cutworm (?). 7.51. Undetermined. 8.55. Heliothis dipsaceus. 7.55. Undetermined. 8.56. Undetermined insect. 7.56. Undetermined. 8.59. Pentatomid bug (Nezara?). 7.57. Undetermined. 9.03. Cutworm (?). 7.574. Undetermined. 9.05. Cutworm. 8.003. Undetermined. 9.10. Caterpillar (Acronycta oblinita). 8.01. Undetermined. 9.13. Brown soldier bug. 8.03. Undetermined. 9.17. Green caterpillar (noctuid). 8.033. Undetermined. 9.20. White grub. 8.06. Heliothis dipsaceus. 9.25. Clay-colored grasshopper. 8.08. Undetermined insect. 9.253. Grasshopper. 8.11. Undetermined insect. 9.30. Undetermined insect. 8.133. Brown caterpillar. 9.37. (Two cabbage worms placed on 8.16. Undetermined insect. edge of tin can.) 8.18. Undetermined insect. 9.38. Acronycta oblinita. 8.20. Undetermined insect. 9.39. Heliothis dipsaceus. (Refused cab- 8.22. Undetermined insect. bage worm. ) 8.23. Two May-flies. 9.393. May-fly. 46 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. Feeding of a brood of house wrens—Continued. ALM. AM, 9.45. Grasshopper. 11.02. May-fly. 9.46. Cutworm. 11.023. May-fly. 9.50. Grasshopper (Melanoplus). 11.15. Green caterpillar. 9.52. Saw-fly larva (?). 11.20. Miller (noctuid). 9.54. Miller (noctuid). 11.21. Black chrysalis. 9.55. Heliothis dipsaceus. 11.22. Saw-fly larva (?). 9.57. Heliothis dipsaceus. 11.25. Spider. 10.00. Spider. 11.26. Grasshopper (Melanoplus). 10.01. Heliothis dipsaceus. 11.30. Aeliothis dipsaceus. 10.05. Black chrysalis. 11.803. May-fly. 10.08. Cutworm. 11.32. Spider. 10.15. Spider. 11.34. Grasshopper (Melanoplus). 10.16. Caterpillar. 11.344. Saw-fly larva (?). 10.20. May-fly. 11.36. Acronycta oblinita. 10.23. Spider. 11.393. May-fly. 10.26. Clay-colored grasshopper. 11.47. Cutworm. 10.29. Clay-coloredgrasshoppernymph. | 11.48. May-fly. 10.30. Acronycta oblinita. 11.50. Cutworm. 10.35. Green caterpillar. 11.51. Heliothis dipsaceus (2). 10.38. Heliothis dipsaceus. 11.59. Heliothis dipsaceus. 10.41. Heliothis dipsaceus. P.M. 10.46. Clay-colored grasshopper. 12.02. Heliothis dipsaceus. 10.48. Spider. 12.06. Spider. 10.50. Miller (noctuid). 12.07. Heliothis dipsaceus. 10.52. Clay-coloredgrasshoppernymph. | 12.09. Cutworm. 10.54. Miller (noctuid). 12.11. Spider. The mother wren thus made 110 visits to her little ones in four hours and thirty-seven minutes, and fed them 111 insects and spiders. Among these were identified 1 white grub, 1 soldier bug, 3 millers (Noctuide), 9 spiders, 9 grasshoppers, 15 May-flies, and 34 caterpil- lars. On the following day similar observations were made from 9.35 a. m. till 12.40 p. m., and in the three hours and five minutes the young were fed 67 times. Spiders were identified in 4 instances, grasshop- pers in 5, May-ilies in 17, and caterpillars in 20. Previous to the observation of this brood of wrens a collection of adult and nestling wrens was made. Their food is shown in diagrams (Pl. IX, fig. 1). Barn Swallow.—The food of seven nestling barn swallows (fig. 16) collected June 17, 1899, consisted of beetles (Onthophagus pennsyl- vanicus, Aphodius inquinatus, Agrilus sp., and Rhynchophora), para- sitic wasps (Chalcis sp., Ichneumonide and 7iphca ‘nornata) and flies (Leptide, Chrysops sp., Lucilia cesar and other Muscide), bugs (Capsidee), May-flies, and snails. The vertebre of some small fish, which may have been taken to aid the gizzard in digesting the food, were also found in the stomachs. Bank Swallow.—An examination was made of the stomachs of 83 young bank swallows collected a few miles above Marshall Hall from FOOD OF NESTLINGS. 47 a colony in the face of the river bluff. They were probably the prog- eny of the swallows that frequently circled over the farm. The food of the nestlings and that of adults collected during the nesting season is shown in diagrams (Pl. IX, fig. 2). Purple martins, which came from a colony of somewhat more than a dozen pairs nesting in boxes on poles at Bryan’s Point, a mile above the house, were often seen circling about the farm. On June 28, 1902, I visited the colony and found the parent birds feeding the young sol- dier bugs, ants, fig-eaters (A//orhinu nitidu), and dragon-flies (Zibellada and Agrionide). Fic. 16.—Barn swallow. Three young downy woodpeckers which were collected May 28, 1896, had fed principally on ants, but had also eaten spiders, ground beetles, and caterpillars. Catbird.—The difference between the food of adults and young belonging to a highly frugivorous species is well ilustrated in the case of the catbird, and is shown in diagrams (PI. IX, fig. 3), which were made principally from results obtained at Marshall Hall. Crow and Crow Blackbird.—Such granivorous birds as crows and crow blackbirds feed their young mainly insects, ‘Sufficient material 48 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. to illustrate this habit was not available at Marshall Hall, but the diagrams here given (figs. 17 and 18), based on results obtained elsewhere,” will serve to show it. By the time the young are ready to leave the nest, however, they are fed to a large extent on either grain or fruit, according to locality. In the Middle West they take grain and in the East generally fruit. Both crows and crow black- LP ~j YP A VERTEBRATES 3 WEEKS AND OLDER Fic. 17.—Diagram showing proportions of food of American crow (Corvus americanus), young and adult. birds do great service by feeding to their young not only cutworms and grasshoppers, but also large numbers of weevils and May-beetles. GENERAL REMARKS. Consumption of caterpillars and grasshoppers is the largest benefit derived from the presence of nestlings on the farm. The parent birds «Most of the stomachs of young and adult crows used in the investigation on which the results shown in the diagram are based were obtained at Sandy Spring, Md.; and most of those of young and adult crow blackbirds came from Onaga, Kans. PLATE IX. Bull. 17, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. NESTLING. Fis. 1.—House Wren. ADULT. [1, Cutworm ; 2, spider - 3, stink-bug ; 4, May-fly 5 5, weevil; 6, grasshopper.] NESTLING. Fis. 2.—Bank SwALLow. ADULT. (1, Weevil; 2, ichneumon fly ; 3, winged ant; 4, fly; 5, dragon-fly ; 6, stink-bug.] NESTLING. Fic. 3.—CaTBIRD. ADULT. (1, Ground-beetle; 2, cutworm; 3, ant; 4, grasshopper; 5, spider.] Foon oF NESTLINGS AND ADULTS OF THREE COMMON BIRDS. (The diagrams show the proportions of the various orders of insects in the food, each order being represented by the insect belonging to it that is most commonly eaten by the bird whose food is shown. (In the case of the Hymenoptera a division is sometimes made between the parasitic members of the order, which are very useful, and those that are neutral or injurious The figures of insects are reduced from cuts kindly loaned by Dr. L. O. Howard.)] i Bull. 17, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. PLATE X, Fig. 1.—RED-TAILED HAWK. Fig. 2.—SHORT-EARED OWL. FOOD OF NESTLINGS. 49 hunt out these insects when they are not abundant ana even when they arerare. At the time of the foregoing observations of orchard orioles, house wrens, and grasshopper sparrows, caterpillars and grasshoppers were comparatively scarce; yet the parent birds, though they chose insects for their own eating from more abundant species, hunted far and wide for these rare ones to feed their young. At Marshall Hall LEPIDOPTERA ‘ORTHOPTERA ORTHOPTERA NEWLY HATCHED HALF GROWN ORTHOPTERA CRAYFISH sven ABeOUS Sn ITEBRATES, I \. SNAILS NEARLY FLEDGED ADULT Fic. 18.—Diagram showing proportions of food of crow blackbird (Quiscalus quiscula xneus), young and adult. the protection and encouragement of birds at nesting time is of prime importance. Adults of the most numerous species on the farm are either highly frugivorous or highly granivorous, hence the insectiy- orous habits of nestlings help considerably to establish the. beneficent relation of birds to the farm economy. 7222—No. 17—02———4 50 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. ITI.—VERTEBRATE FOOD. POULTRY AND GAME. Crows.—Certain species of the larger birds were found to take ver- tebrate food. Crows and some of the hawks and owls destroyed useful small birds and also game and poultry. On the Hungerford farm crows were observed killing newly-hatched turkeys, and on the Bryan farm they were not uncommonly seen carrying off little chickens. The most serious offense against the poultry interest, however, was the habitual stealing of eggs. During April, 1900, a crow came every day and robbed a hen’s nest in the side of a hayrick at a little distance from buildings. Often he would be seen waiting on a fence near by until the hen announced that the egg had been laid, when he would dash down and make off with his booty. Such depredations could be avoided by furnishing the hens with such facilities that they would no longer lay in exposed situations. As it is, incessant war upon the crow is necessary to prevent heavy logs to poultry on this farm. Game birds also suffer. On May 15,1900, a crow was caught on the forested slope beyond the swamp (Pl. VII, fig. 2) in the act of pillaging the nest of a ruffed grouse. Crows also despoiled the nest of a bobwhite, a species which probably suffers oftener than the ruffed grouse. Eagle.—The bald eagles that are frequently seen at Marshall Hall do not disdain to pick up a little game now and then. Early in March, 1897, a crippled scaup.duck was seen in the river a hundred’ yards from the house chased by an eagle and diving every time its pursuer swooped down on it. When the quarry was almost tired out the eagle was shot, and fell into the river with a broken wing, but it had suffi- cient strength left to lacerate a pointer that attempted to retrieve it. On November 15, 1900, an eagle was seen flying over the house gripping in its talons a live coot, which turned its head rapidly from side to side in its struggles to escape. During the hunting season eagles get a good part of their food by picking up wounded ducks. They also prey on domesticated ducks. In the first week of August, 1896, they carried off several ducklings that went down to the swamp. The royal brigands relish chicken, and in the nest of one pair that came to the farm was the carcass of a recently kdled Plymouth Rock hen. Cooper Hawk.—With the exception of the English sparrow, the Cooper hawk (tig. 19) probably does the least good and the most harm of all the birds of the farm, for it subsists almost entirely on wild birds and poultry. It very frequently steals little chickens, and con- stantly preys on the bobwhite and useful insectivorous or seed-eating small birds. During November, 1900, the bobwhites were so perse- cuted that they were seldom found far from cover. In one instance a hawk was seen to swoop to the ground and rise with a victim, the VERTEBRATE FOOD. 51 identity of which was afterwards made sure by the discovery of the feathers of a cock bobwhite on the spot where the hawk had struck. Sharpshinned Hawk.—The sharpshinned hawk, congener of the Cooper hawk, is also a harmful species. It was frequently observed pursuing native sparrows, and on November 15, 1900, was seen tearing a mockingbird to pieces. The smaller birds suffer most in autumn. On the 15th of November, 1899, I was observing a score of cardinals, juncos, white-throated sparrows, fox sparrows, and song sparrows PRP ily ge 3 ligt tlie: WW Mali Fic. 19.—Cooper hawk. that were eating ragweed seed in wheat stubble’by the negro cabin. Suddenly the whole flock sprang into the air and flew straight toward me and into the bushes behind me, twittering with fright. Their swiftness just saved them from a sharpshinned hawk, which swooped and struck the ground where they had been feeding. It was two hours before they dared to leave their shelter and feed again on weed seeds of the stubble-field. These two species of hawks patrol the farm 52 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. so vigilantly in autumn and winter that birds which eat weed seed are kept in constant terror, and are unable to do all the good they might accomplish were it not for their tireless enemies. Owing to the depredations of these two hawks, all hawks without distinction have been relentlessly persecuted by man, although very few are actually detrimental to agriculture. Great Horned Owl.—Only one of the several species of owls occur- ring at Marshall Hall is harmful, namely, the great horned owl (fig. 20). Fic. 20.—Great horned owl. It occasionally makes inroads on poultry that is not housed. In December, 1897, a great horned owl carried off a full-grown hen from her roost in a tree beside the negro cabin, and on five of the first ten nights of May one came and took hens from the cedar trees behind the house. On the night of the sixth visit a steel trap baited with a hen secured the robber. A year seldom passes without losses from this fierce and powerful bird of prey. VERTEBRATE FOOD. 53 FISH. Several species of birds on the farm are known to feed on fish, but they are so few in number and take food fishes so seldom that as far as has been learned they cause no material injury to fishing interests, which at this point on the river are of considerable importance. A pair of kingtishers were often seen fishing along the shore in front of the Bryan house (PI. ITI, fig. 2), and five nestlings taken from the bluff on the Hungerford place had been fed wholly on fish. Herons, includ- ing the night heron, the green heron, and the great blue heron, were frequently seen wading in shallow water, spearing fish with their long, pointed beaks. Two green herons that were collected had eaten sil- versides (A/-nidia notata) and mummichogs (Pundulus heteroctitus). Ducks, particularly the mergansers, feed to some extent on fish. Two hooded mergansers, collected November 15, 1900, had eaten respect- ively 12 and 20 tiny fish. Gulls are decidedly more piscivorous than ducks. During November the herring gull and the ring-billed gull fished by the dozen out in the river between the farmhouse and Mount Vernon (see Pl. I, frontispiece fig. 2). In the same place the osprey was once in a while seen plunging after his prey. The bald eagle was observed catching fish, but more often it feeds on those that it finds dead. CARRION. Some birds, notably eagles, crows, and buzzards, feed at times largely on dead fish. Eagles may be seen along the river scanning the shore for those cast up by the tide. May 19, 1899, an eagle flying over the farm dropped an eel 26 inches long that had evidently been taken as carrion. Gulls, also, undoubtedly pick up a good deal of such food. Crows and buzzards are valuable scavengers of dead fish cast up at low tide during the last of April and the first of May, when the fishing season is at its height. These fish are small, principally sun-fish, white perch, and shad, that were fatally injured by nets. Observations on May 5, 1901, showed the whole river front of the farm strewn with decaying fish, which gave out such a stench that one could not sit comfortably within several hundred yards of the beach. Some 40 buzzards were feeding on the carrion all day. On close inspection they were seen to be selecting that which was most badly decomposed. Crows in almost as-large numbers and several crow blackbirds were also feeding, but they commonly took that which was less decayed. Several crows came repeatedly to the shore of lot 1, picked up fish, and carried them to their nests in the woods. By abating this nuisance crows and buzzards do a service that is appre- ciated by the occupants of the farmhouse. Buzzards are also useful in removing other carrion. Stack that dies on the farm is never buried, but is left for them. November 16, 54 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. 1899, some notes were made on the manner in which a carcass was disposed of. On the edge of lot 1, near the mouth of Persimmon Branch, lay a horse that had died two weeks before. Fully 30 buz- zards closely attended it, and some were to be found at work on it at any hour of the day, while the others, tired of gorging, sat around on a rail fence, stretching their wings and preening. At night they all roosted together in oak trees within a hundred yards of the horse, as if they wished to keep near the food. A year later another horse was given over to the buzzards. The buzzards did not in either case tear open the skin to expose the large muscles, but if the weather had been hot they might have eaten these as well as viscera. Crows are seldom known to feed on dead stock, but during the March blizzard of 1898 they were almost starved, and resorted with buzzards to a dead cow. Buzzards dispose of the entrails and other refuse of pigs, fish, and chickens, which are thrown to them in a certain place where they have learned to expect it. MAMMALS. Mice.—The crow and several other birds of the farm do some good by destroying injurious mammals. In the vicinity of the storage barn a loggerhead shrike was often to be seen. Here it impaled its prey on thorns of the osage orange hedge and on the barbs of a wire fence. In one instance a house mouse was found spitted on the fence. If extended observations could have been made it is probable that mice would often have been found in the larder of this useful little shrike. The crow takes mice at every opportunity. On February 21, 1900, signs of its work appeared near the runways of meadow mice in a wheat-stubble patch of lot 5, in the form of crow tracks in the light snow, holes pecked in the earth, and at one place spatters of blood and tufts of mouse hair. Hawks feed habitually on these mice. In January, 1898, when there were several inches of snow on the ground,’a red- tailed hawk (Pl. X, fig. 1) shot in the road by the negro cabin held in its talons the warm body of a meadow mouse. November 15, 1900, a marsh hawk skimming over lot 2 suddenly dived into the brown broom- sedge. As it rose it was killed and a meadow mouse dropped from its clutch. In its stomach the head and hind quarters of another were found. This species of hawk is undoubtedly the most useful mouser on the farm and should have due credit, for mice cause much injury there to fruit trees, sweet potatoes, and grain. The short-eared owl (Pl. X, fig. 2) has several times been observed preying upon meadow mice. This bird; the marsh hawk, and the red-shouldered hawk, which are all excellent mousers and rarely attack poultry or birds, are con- tinually made to pay with their lives for the depredations of the real poultry thieves of the hawk and owl tribe—the Cooper and sharp- shinned hawks and the great horned owl. The illustration of a short- CULTIVATED FRUIT. 55 eared owl here given is of a bird that had just made vicarious atonement for depredations on the poultry by the great horned owl. Rabbits——The marsh hawk and other large species prey on rabbits. In the last week of December, 1897, a marsh hawk was shot which had just killed one of unusual size. The crow regularly feeds on young rabbits. On March 27, 1901, several crows that were congregated in some grass land at a point 150 yards behind the house were frightened away. An empty rabbit's nest found on the spot and stains of blood on the broom-sedge told what they had been doing. The rabbit is 2 nuisance on the farm. It often ruins hotbeds of sweet potatoes, cuts tortuous paths through wheat fields, and nibbles cabbages and turnips. Not more than 20 miles from Marshall Hall rabbits girdled and killed 2,000 young pear trees in an orchard of 4,000 within two months. The food of the 645 birds examined shows only 1.72 percent of ver- tebrate food. The reason for so small a proportion is the fact that the collection included only 19 birds that could be expected to feed on flesh. IV.—FRUIT. CULTIVATED VARIETIES. Fruit forms with many common birds an important element of food. Of the 645 stomachs of native birds collected at Marshall Hall 139 contained either wild or cultivated fruit. The greatest interest naturally centers in the cultivated varieties. Strawberries.—The earliest fruit on the farm is the strawberry. It usually ripens about the middle of May and would naturally be expected to tempt the birds. With a view to measuring their depre- dations on the crop, two visits were made to Marshall Hall between the 13th and the 20th of May of 1899 and 1900. A strawberry patch in the BrYan kitchen garden was watched for several days in the early morning, when birds were feeding most busily, but although catbirds, orchard orioles, and other notably frugivorous species were all around the patch, not one of the birds entered it for berries. On the Hungerford place, adjacent to the wooded dell tenanted by the colony of crow blackbirds already referred to, there was a large strawberry patch, from around which were collected 13 blackbirds, 13 catbirds, and 2 orchard orioles, but only one of them, a catbird, had eaten strawberries. On the previous day the patch was watched for several hours. Only a solitary catbird entered it and he did not take a berry. These and other observations showed that birds at Marshall Hall did not harm the strawberry crop, but, on the other hand, pro- tected it by destroying ground-beetles, which, as has been said, injure the fruit. If catbirds were fond of strawberries, they would have made sad havoc on these farms, for they fairly swarmed amid the 56 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. tangled vegetation on the river front (PI. IV, fig. 1). Their liking for fruit is well known, and it seems strange that they should pre- fer winter-cured smilax berries to strawberries; yet of 13 individuals collected at this time 5 had eaten smilax berries that had hung on the bushes all winter. Cherries.— During cherry time 227 birds were collected, 23 of which, comprising crows, crow blackbirds, catbirds, cedar birds, brown thrash- ers, and kingbirds, had fed on cherries and little else. Cherries ripen from the 30th of May to the 15th of June and remain on the trees for about a month. Some interesting field observations corroborated the results of the examination. On the Bryan farm cherry trees are so numerous that an observer can not keep track of the birds that fly to them, but on the Hungerford farm, where the trees are few, there is no difficulty in taking notes. One large black ox-heart tree in a hedge row several hundred yards from the river was watched June 15, 1899. From sunrise till sunset there was seldom an interval of ten minutes when it was empty. Catbirds few up to it from the matted vines on the river front; thrashers came from inland thickets; and king- birds flew over from apple and pear orchards. A flock of half a dozen cedar birds every now and then came to it and fed eagerly, and a crow made it a base of supplies for her greedy brood in a neighbor. ing sycamore. The colony of crow blackbirds that had nested in the adjacent dell were, however, the most regular and frequent visitors. They had taken their recently fledged young to a swamp a quarter of a mile away, and all day long flew back and forth in a ‘bee line’ between that and the cherry tree, often meeting one another in the journey and sometimes numbering three or four in the tree at one time. As an experiment looking toward the possible protection of cherries, a screech owl with a clipped wing was placed in a cherry tree near the Bryan farmhouse. Several catbirds that came to pillage made an out- cry at first, but soon attacked the cherries, regardless of the owl. An English sparrow, a red-eyed vireo, and two orchard orioles that entered the tree were at first much disturbed, but were all eating cherries within fifteen minutes. Since the screech owl does not feed on birds to a considerable extent, they probably did not recognize in him a dangerous enemy. The presence of a great horned owl or a Cooper hawk would doubtless have had a completely deterrent effect. The cherry crop at Marshall Hall is not marketed, nor is one hundredth of it ever picked; the proportion consumed by birds is, consequently, of no economic importance. Other orchard fruit— When the cherry season was over the birds that had shown themselves notably frugivorous were expected to turn their attention to the orchards of plums, peaches, pears, and apples. While these fruits were ripe 161 birds were collected, but not one appeared CULTIVATED FRUIT. 57 to have molested them. Many had taken fruit, but had drawn on nature’s supply instead of man’s. All the trees in the orchard were watched, but birds apparently did not rob them, a fact in striking contrast with the notorious pillaging by birds in the fruit-growing regions of California. In California birds also do much damage in spring by eating the buds and blossoms of fruit trees, but at Marshall Hall no appreciable loss is caused in this way. White-throated spar- rows occasionally feed on buds and blossoms, and on one occasion (April 25, 1901) three of these birds were seen mutilating pear blos- soms in the kitchen garden, but beyond this no example of such depredations was observed. Grapes.—Grapes are not raised for market at Marshall Hall. In the Bryan kitchen garden there is a trellis for family use, but birds did no appreciable injury to the grapes that grew on it. Tomatoes.—Catbirds were reported to be ruining the tomato crop on the Hungerford farm during the third week of June, 1899. The place was visited and every tomato that had reddened at all was found to have been pecked. The injury was causing heavy loss to the farm, for the fruit at that time broughta high price. The patch was watched for several hours, but not a catbird entered it. Nine chickens, how- ever, stole up from a small house on the shore and went from plant to plant, eating greedily. To make doubly sure that catbirds had no share in the mischief, 15 individuals were collected from the neigh- boring delland the bushes about the patch, and examination was made of the stomach contents. No trace of tomatoes was found. Melons.—The only fruit grown for market that suffered from the depredations of native birds was the melon, and it was attacked by only one species—the crow. In numbers from three or four to a dozen at a time crows began to injure melons about August | and con- tinued for three weeks, attacking both watermelons and cantaloupes, but preferring the former. Each crow would peck at a melon a dozen times or so and then pass on to another. If no protective measures had been taken, the crop would often have,been a total loss, and in spite of all efforts from 5 to 20 percent of the melons grown at all distant from buildings were punctured (fig. 21). Carcasses of crows, strings with long white streamers attached, an improvised miniature windmill that revolved and struck noisily against a piece of metal, and a bit of bright tin suspended from a string so that it turned with every breath of air and reflected the sun about the field were some of the devices used to frighten the wary and suspicious marauders. In 1873, 1874, and 1875, when the melon crop was so important that 4 or 5 acres, containing from 3,000 to 4,000 hills, were given up to it, the method of protection used in the rice fields of the South was adopted: from sunrise to sunset a negro with an old musket and plenty of pow- 58 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. der watched from a brush shelter in the middle of the field and, when- ever a crow appeared, frightened it away with a thundering report. If the field was left unguarded for any length of time, the crows were sure to make havoc among the melons. Since they would never come within gunshot if they knew anybody was watching, attempts were made to destroy them by a stratagem; two men would enter the brush house and one of them would soon leave, hoping to delude the crows into thinking that the house was empty, so that they would venture within range of the second man’s gun. The plan worked only in the first few trials, however. The farmers at Marshall Hall maintain that crows can count up to three, for.they could not be hoodwinked unless three men left the house and a fourth remained to shoot. Fic, 21.—Melons damaged by crows. WILD FRUIT. Wild fruit formed 10.12 percent of the food of the 645 birds col- lected, and had been eaten by 120. Both examination of stomachs and notes of field work showed how important.an element it is in the food supply of many species. Smilax.—The catbird, which, with the possible exception of the cedar bird, is the most conspicuous frugivorous species on the farm, ate in May, when it arrived from the South, the winter-cured berries of smilax. Out of 13 individuals collected May 17-20, 1899, 5 had made from 15 to.40 percent of their diet on these husks in preference, as has already been said, to the feast spread in the strawberry patch. WILD FRUIT. 59 During May cedar birds and crow blackbirds also relished them, and the robin, when hard pressed on its arrival, duri ing the last of Feb- ruary, was seen to eat them eagerly. Mulberries.-—The first wild fruit that offers a freshly ripened supply at Marshall Hall is the mulberry, and it lasts from the end of May until the end of June. On May 29, 1896, observations were made of birds feeding in a large mulberry tree in the wooded gully of the hog lot. A pair of downy woodpeckers that bred in a willow stub near by were twice noted eating the berries. A Baltimore oriole, probably a late migrant, fed on them eagerly. Several pairs of orchard orioles and kingbirds which nested together near the house came to the tree at frequent intervals. The hingbirds would balance themselves on the topmost sprays and pluck the berries as gingerly as if they had been insects. Two pairs of red-eyed vireos and a pair of white-eyed vireos haunted the mulberry and adjacent trees, now and then taking a berry, but most of the time apparently eating insects. A cardinal that nested on the shore of the calamus swamp, 200 yards distant, made one trip to the tree, but was accidentally frightened out of any subsequent visits. Crows came from the woods 25 rods away and three blue jays journeyed at least a quarter of a mile for the fruit. Song sparrows frequently hopped about on the ground beneath the tree and picked up fallen fruit. A flock of eight cedar birds fairly gorged themselves. At intervals they would repair to cedar trees on the brink of the gully and sit as motionless as if they were literally stuffed, until diges- tion relieved their repletion. Then they would apparently wake up, preen their pretty plumage, and, regaining activity one after another, would presently with one accord fly back to the berries with renewed appetite. They appeared to spend their whole time alternately feast- ing and napping. The catbirds were about as gluttonous, but notso lazy. They came to the tree from the neighborhood, from the house, and from the river bluff. Hardly a period of five minutes passed in which not one was among the branches, and three or four were often present at once. They were so tame that it was possible to see just how they fed. One would pluck a berry, sometimes an inch long, bolt it whole, and then stand almost choking, with mouth wide open, while the berry, which made a great lump in its gullet, slowly passed into its stomach. Then with evident relief it would hop about and perhaps sing a few bars of song. There was no luxurious idleness among the catbirds. As soon as they had eaten they either sang or flew away to resume nest building, incubation, or the feeding of their young. Mulberries formed at this season the greater part of their food. A list follows of the birds that were observed feeding on this fruit or that were found by examination to have eaten it. 60 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. List of birds feeding on mulberries. Blue jay. Cardinal. Downy woodpecker. Crow. Carolina chickadee. Cedar bird. Crow blackbird. Song sparrow. Catbird. Orchard oriole. Red-eyed vireo. Kingbird. Baltimore oriole. White-eyed vireo. Bobwhite. Raspberries and blackberries.—The black raspberry, the dewberry, and the blackberry, which are the wild fruits that, in the order given, ripen next, are too plentiful and too widely distributed for much remunerative field observation. The following list of birds that ate them was prepared chiefly from stomach examination: List of birds feeding on raspberries and blackberries. Bobwhite. Brown thrasher. Kingbird. Summer redbird. Catbird. Red-headed woodpecker. Cardinal. Orchard oriole. Cedar bird. Song sparrow. Bluebird. Field sparrow. Crow. A few field notes on the destruction of these fruits were made, how- ever. Catbirds were seen, May 30, 1896, in black raspberry bushes near the house, eating half a dozen berries apiece. During June, 1899, lot 2 was overrun with a network of dewberry vines. Here, on the 17th, bobwhites were observed walking from vine to vine, picking the berries in a systematic fashion. During 1896 blackberries fruited heavily, and birds were not slow to take advantage of the generous food supply. July 12 a red-headed woodpecker was observed to come and feed on the berries with catbirds and orchard orioles, and a king- bird was seen to fly down to a bush, hover beside it, and pluck a berry. In early August, 1898, two field sparrows were seen in several instances selecting fruit which had dried on the bushes in preference to that which was fresh and juicy. They may have done this to obtain the seeds of the berry and extract their meat. A number of song sparrows picked up blackberries from the ground as they had mul- berries. Since this species is often very abundant in cultivated patches of blackberries and takes 10 percent of its food from this fruit in its season, the habit of feeding on fallen berries may be fortunate for the horticulturist. Rubus fruits are not raised for market at Marshall ‘Hall, hence it is unimportant whether the birds eat them or not; if they were, and if there were no other fruit available, the abundant frugivorous birds would probably decrease the profits considerably. Elderberries.—Elderberries ripen next, usually during the latter half of July. There are so few of them on the farm that the record is scanty, but field notes made August 5, 1898, show how much they are WILD FRUIT. 61 relished. A large elder bush was watched from 1.40 to 2.50 p. m. The observations may be thus summarized: Detailed account of birds feeding on elderberries. 1.45: A song sparrow hopped along under the bush and picked up a fallen berry. 1.51: A downy woodpecker alighted on the main stalk and, ascending within reach of a cluster, ate 2 berries. 1.58: A female orchard oriole came and fed. 2.00: A catbird ate several berries. 2.03: A red-eyed vireo took 1 berry. 2.09: A catbird ate 3 berries. 2.11: A pair of red-eyed vireos flew into the bush; one took a berry and scurried away, but the other remained long enough to eat 4 berries. 2.12: A male redbird dashed in, took a berry, and dashed out. 2.13: A crow dropped clumsily into the bush, but after.one peck at the fruit espied me and flew away with loud clamor. 2.15: A catbird took 1 berry. 2.16: A white-eyed vireo took 3 berries. 2.20: A catbird took a berry. 2.23: A female summer redbird came shyly and hurriedly ate several berries. 2.24: A catbird took a berry. 2.25: Another catbird picked at a cluster rapidly for one minute, swallowing in that time 20 berries. 2.27: A red-eyed vireo, poised in the air like a humming bird, ate several berries from the same cluster. 2.28: A female cardinal ate a berry. 2.30: A catbird ate 10 berries in a minute, rested, and 2.33: Took several more. 2.35: A female summer redbird, bending a berry stalk under her weight, leisurely plucked 5 berries from the drooping cluster. 2.37: A catbird ate 4 berries, sat and preened its feathers, and 2.50: Ate 17 more. Wild cherries.—The wild black cherry (Prunus serotina) is plentiful at Marshall Hall, but as a rule birds did not congregate about it as they do in more northern States. The following species were found feeding on it: List of birds feeding on wild cherries. Catbird. Song sparrow. Orchard oriole. Kingbird. English sparrow. Red-headed woodpecker. Pheebe. Crow. Blueberries.— Blueberries, though a staple article of birds’ diet, are so scarce at Marshall Hall as to be unimportant. Tufted titmice and cat- birds have been noted feeding on them at the southern corner of lot 4. Other wild fruits.— With the waning of summer there comes such an abundance and variety of wild fruit that birds scatter over wide areas of the farm, and observation of their feeding habits yields only desul- tory results. Thereare, altogether, more than a score of wild fruit- ing plants at Marshall Hall, which furnish food to at least 30 kinds of 62 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. birds. Some of them, such as sassafras, blackberry, elder, and wild cherry, drop their berries shortly after ripening them, while others, such as hackberry, catbrier, and sumac, keep theirs well into win- ter and even until spring. The bountiful supply of late fruit is most noticeable just after the falling of the leaves. Then one may see large trees festooned with the burdened vines of bittersweet, woodbine, cat- brier, and wild grape. Besides the climbing plants, many shrubs and trees are laden with fruit. The low horse-nettle is bright with yellow berries; the rank pokeweed bends under long grape-like bunches of dark purple fruit; and the persimmon is hung with yellow globes. The sour gum has dropped its deep-blue berries and light-red leaves together, but the holly is set thick with scarlet clusters that will glow all winter amid its shining green. Some of the tastes exhibited by birds in their selection of fruit are interesting and singular. Catbirds and vireos have been known to pass by ripe blackberries and elderberries and choose green wild cher- ries and sassafras berries. Many birds eat sumac berries, which are practically all seeds and would seem to be about as satisfactory food as so much gravel. Fully a dozen species select the berries of black alder, which are as bitter as quinine. Cedar berries, a favorite food with birds, have an effect on the human system like cantharides, while the berries of pokeweed, nigktshade, and poison ivy contain danger- ous poisons. If birds are not immune from the toxic effects of these berries, one may question whether they do not take them for stimu- lation, as man takes tobacco and alcoholic beverages. Poison ivy is eaten by practically all the frugivorous birds of the ‘farm. A crow that was shot November 15, 1900, had 144 poison- ivy seeds in its stomach. The pokeberry is also a favorite fruit. Mockingbirds and catbirds that were collected had fed on it so freely that their intestines were discolored by its juice. During February, 1900, the snow was stained in several places by bright red spots with a hole in the center an inch or more deep, at the bottom of which was a mass of fruit pulp and pokeberry seeds. These deposits proved to be excreta of cardinal grosbeaks that had eaten the berries, the heat from the droppings having sufficed to melt the hole in the snow. Nightshade berries (Solanum nigrum) were eaten by several birds of the farm, especially by the bobwhite. During February and Novem- - ber, 1900, a few sapsuckers, downy woodpeckers, bluebirds, and myrtle warblers, together with dozens of flickers and robins, and scores of cedar birds and purple finches, fed on the spicy, stimulating berries of the red cedar. Distribution of seeds by birds.—The large consumption of wild fruit results in a wide distribution of seeds, which are voided by birds and germinate where they are dropped. Some observations on crows will WILD FRUIT. 63 illustrate this dispersion. On November 17, 1899, a large flock on the wing was noticed in the distance, at a point opposite Fort Washing- ton, several miles above Marshall Hall. They came on down the river in a line that at times stretched almost from one bank to the other. When they neared Marshall Hall they circled several times and finally alighted on the shore of the Bryan farm, at the mouth of Persimmon Branch. The flock numbered at least a thousand, and hoarse caws and croaks gave evidence that it was made up to some extent of fish crows. After the birds had remained on the shore fifteen minutes they were put to flight by a farmer’s boy, and flew on down the river, lessening to specks, and finally disappearing on the horizon. Going to the place where they had alighted, I found the sandy beach cut up _for more than a hundred yards with their tracks. Many led out to the water, and floating black feathers here and there showed where baths had been taken. The most interesting trace of their sojourn, however, was several hundred pellets of fruit material, which they had ejected through their mouths and dropped on the ground. These pellets (fig. 22) were about an inch in length and half an inch in diameter. They were of a deep purplish color, due to the fruit of woodbine, wild grape, and pokeberry, of which they were mainly composed. In 50 pellets collected there were only 11 seeds of other plants—namely, holly, bitter- sweet, and poison ivy. Pokeberry seeds were by far the most numerous. Mr. A. J. Pieters, of the Botanical Division of the Department of Agriculture, germinated some of them, thus demonstrating une woe ejected fact that they were distributed uninjured, by crow. Examination of the pellets showed the ee fact that they were made up not only of seeds (fig. 23) and skin, but largely of fruit pulp in an undigested state; indeed, many pellets appeared to be com- pacted masses of mashed or squeezed berries. It seems strange that the birds should have rid themselves of a substance that still contained a good deal of nutriment. Little is known of the distribution of fruit seeds by crows during migration, but it is certain that they do this work effectively while they fly to and from the roosts where they congregate in winter, for their feeding grounds often cover an area stretching out on all sides from the roost for 50 miles or more. It appears highly probable that the crows which are found in winter at Marshall Hall roost at Wood- ridge, D. C., some 15 miles distant. There, in the midst of several acres of woodland, a crow dormitory is established, in which prob- ably 100,000 crows sleep every winter night. It was visited in Febru- ary, 1901, and the ground was found to be strewn with disgorged 64 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. pellets containing the seeds of poison ivy, poison sumac and other sumacs, smilax, cedar, sour gum, and flowering dogwood. Some pel- lets, also, were made up of the hulls of corn and oats. The distribution of fruiting plants illustrated by the crow is effected, though usually in a slighter degree, by all other frugivorous birds. Areas from which such plants and shrubs have been removed are in a short time replanted by birds. . At Marshall Hall such plants thus assisted are constantly striving to secure a foothold on the arable land. This scattering of fruit seeds is illustrated by some observations made March 27, 1901. Under a large black walnut tree, remote from other woody vegetation and near the negro cabin, a two hours’ search brought to view 172 fruit seeds, including mulberry, cultivated cherry, G @ @- Smooth Sumae (Rhus gl abre) Rough-leaved CorneL. (Cornus asperifolic) Catbrter Smilax rotuncifotia ) Plowerbig Dogwood (Cornus florida) } (©) ee) Poison Ty (Rhus toxicodendron-) @ Sour Gum _ Red Cedar Nyssa’ aquatic ) (Juntperus virginionus) Fie. 23.—Some common seeds found in crow pellets. wild black cherry, wild grape, woodbine, pokeberry, cedar, sassafras, blackberry, and sumac. Under a large cedar in the middle of lot 2 seeds of the following additional fruiting plants were collected: Elder, hackberry, bittersweet, sour gum, smilax, blueberry, flowering dog- wood, and poison ivy. The most striking examples of trees planted by birds at Marshall Hall are the ox-heart cherry. trees that extend along the river front for half a mile. Almost as notable, perhaps, are the tall cedar trees which stand in long rows between adjacent fields (see Pl. XII, fig. 1). Scattered over the old pastures, also, little cedar trees, like fox brushes, attest the work of the winged planters, but in the arable land the rotation of crops kills all except such as may start along fence rows. Bull. 17, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. PLaTE XI. Fig. 2.—CORN INJURED BY CROWS. Bull, 17, Biological Survey, U, S. Dept. of Agriculture. PLATE XII. Fic. 1.—CORNFIELD, LOT 5. Fia, 2.—WHEAT STuBBLE, LOT 3. The line of trees in the middle-ground marks the course of Persimmon Branch. GRAIN. 65 Sassafras planted by birds on arable land is not so easily exterminated. On the Hungerford farm it almost choked a peach orchard of several acres. On the Bryan farm it attained such a growth in a cornfield previously used for grass that it had to be cut down with brush hooks (Pl. XI, fig. 1). In another part of the same lot high-bush blackber- ries sown by birds had to be similarly eradicated. V.—GRAIN. Grain had entered into the food of 38 out of the 645 birds examined. Of these 21 had picked up waste kernels and 17 had secured valuable grain, which, however, amounted to but 1.25 per cent of the food of all the birds. Crow.—The crow (fig. 24) is by all odds the worst pilferer of the cornfield. Every year at Marshall Hall, as elsewhere, a part of the field must be replanted because of his ‘ pickings and stealings.’ In 1899 the replanting was more ex- tensive than usual, requiring on the 39-acre field 1 bushel 23 pecks, 46 percent of the 34 bushels origi- nally planted. This unusual ratio was probably caused by the fail- ure of the cherry crop, which left the crow short of food. The pro- tective device of tarring seed corn is employed to some extent on the Hungerford farm. In June, 1899, I planted two rows of corn, one tarred, on the edge of lot 4, near a nest of young crows. When the Fig. 24.—Common crow. seed sprouted 3 kernels were pulled from the untarred row, and 7 plants were uprooted from the tarred row, the kernels of which were left intact. On May 30, 1901, a field of sprouting tarred corn on the Hungerford place was visited. In spite of the fact that a field of unprotected corn adjoined it, crows came to this field, perhaps because it was nearer woods. After three of them had walked about among the hills for fifteen minutes the place was inspected. Only three plants bad been pulled up, but in each case the grain had been removed. It may be mentioned here that at Wayland, Mass., during June, 1901, crows pulled a large quantity of tarred corn, but did not eat it. The corn there had been coated with wood ashes after the tarring 7222—No. 17—-02—— 5 66 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. and dropped by a corn planter. Some farmers object to tarring for fear of clogging the planter. At Marshall Hall lime is used instead of ashes, but most farmers who tar their corn discard the machine and plant in hills. é The injury to corn by crows at other seasons than sprouting time is, as a general thing, comparatively insignificant, but in some years it has been important when the ears were in the milk. Unfortunately at the worst times no observations were made, though crows were seen each summer feeding on corn in this stage of development, tear- ing open the ears and picking out the kernels in rapid succession (Pl. XI, fig. 2). In the National Zoological Park at Washington dur- ing the summer of 1896, their depredations on an acre of corn in the milk were watched and 50 percent of the crop was found to have. been ruined. The only scarecrows that proved effective at Marshall Hall were dead crows and strings stretched on poles around the field and hung with long white streamers. Although in fall the number of marauders is greatly increased by reenforcements from the North, ripe corn sus- tains less injury than roasting ears. One reason is the fact that the extracting of a few kernels froma ripe ear does not cause the rest to rot, as is the case with roasting ears. Another reason is the abun- dance of fall fruit. Wheat also suffers comparatively little. When it is ripening, cherries and sprouting corn divert the crows’ attention. After it is cut and gathered into the shock, however, they often join the English sparrows in removing the kernels from the cap sheaves. In November, 1899, they attacked newly sown wheat also, cleaning every kernel off a patch of wet ground where the drill had failed to cover the seed. They were also observed in several instances pulling up sprouting wheat. Oats are injured even less than wheat, though crows have been noticed feeding on them at harvest time. Crow Blackbird.—The crow blackbird (fig. 25) takes grain to the extent of 45 percent of its food, as Professor Beal has shown, and is a bird that needs watching. The farmers at Marshall Hall complained that it injured sprouting corn, but observations did not show the damage to be serious. The only birds concerned in this work were those in the breeding colony in the dell on the Hungerford farm. Except in rare instances, they were not seen visiting the Bryan farm at sprouting time; consequently they could not be held responsible for serious injury there. On May 18, 1899, they were watched in their dell. The parent birds kept going to and from their nests, which held eggs or newly hatched young, and many foraged in an adjacent field of sprout- ing corn. Nine old birds and four nestlings were collected, but only one, an adult, had taken corn, and that one in trifling proportion. On May 30, 1901, the colony was again visited. The young were then feathered and old enough to eat vegetable food. The most available supply was a field of sprouting corn unprotected by tar, that lay within GRAIN. 67 a hundred yards of the dell. It was watched from 1 p. m. till 6 p.m, but although the birds often flew over it and in two cases alighted in it, they apparently did it no injury, and a careful search for pulled corn showed not a plant disturbed. Blackbirds probably did some mischief to corn in the milk, however, and were often seen stealing from the shock, but these offenses were trivial in comparison with their attacks on sprouting winter wheat. During November, 1900, a flock of from 2,000 to 3,000 pulled wheat on the Bryan farm, and only continual use of the shotgun saved the crop. Ateach report they would fly to the oak woods bordering lot 5, where they fed on acorns. Nine birds collected had eaten acorns and wheat in about equal proportions. The flock must have taken daily at least half an ounce of food apiece, Fig. 25.—Crow blackbird. and therefore, if the specimens examined were representative, must in a week have made away with 217 pounds of sprouting wheat, a loss that would entail at harvest time a shortage of at least ten times as much. When wheat and oats were harvested no appreciable loss was possible, as only a few blackbirds remained on the farm, and, in fact, these few appeared to be feeding on fruit or insects, or, when they did eat grain, to be taking chiefly waste kernels. During June of 1898, 1899, 1900, and 1901, when wheat was ripening or being harvested, blackbirds came from their nesting dell to the Bryan farm, but only in few instances were they seen in the wheat fields. OnJune 15 and 16, when oats and wheat were ready to cut on the Hungerford farm, the colony was closely watched. The young were on the wing and the 68 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. whole flock was expected to resort to the grain fields, but none were seen to enter them. On June 18, however, when oats were being cut, several birds were noted feeding on them in two instances. English Sparrow.—The English sparrow (fig. 26) is the most highly granivorous bird on the farm. The stomachs of 53 birds—17 nest- lings and 36 adults—were collected. Grain had been eaten by 8 of the young—a large proportion, for nearly all nestlings are almost exclu- sively insectivorous. It formed 86 percent of the food of the adults, all but two having taken it. Six had selected oats, 14 wheat, and 15 corn. The number of English sparrows on the two farms varied from 200 to 1,000. They fed on grain whenever and wherever it was attain- able. They did not appear to hurt sprouting fields, but did con- siderable harm to standing crops. In 1898 lot + was in wheat, and Bld Fic. 26.—English sparrow. about the middle of June, when it was nearly ready for cutting, a strip 200 yards long beside the fence near the storage barn was found broken down by sparrows. The loss by this mischief was even greater than that by their continual thefts from the rest of the field. A year later they ruined in the same way a strip of wheat several yards wide, extending from the negro cabin to Persimmon Branch, and also sec- tions of oat fields on the upper part of the Hungerford farm. They attacked both wheat and oats in the shock, and stole much of the grain in the cap sheaves. They were seen feeding on corn in the milk, but probably selected ears that had already been torn open by crows; Dr. A. K. Fisher, however, has observed English sparrows at Chevy Chase, Md., opening and eating the tip ends of ears of corn GRAIN. 69 without any aid from crows. Whenever stock was fed with grain they were always on hand to get their portion. They ate corn with the pigs in the hog lot, and often outnumbered the little chickens in the back yard around their rations of cracked corn or Indian mush. Not satisfied with regular feeding times, they drew on the source of supply, the corn house, and could be seen any day in the year, but most commonly in winter, flying out of it, sometimes by the score. Other birds.—So far as is known, no other birds of the farm com- mitted serious depredations on grain, though several occasionally did trifling harm. The red-winged blackbird did not disturb sprouting grain, but was seen in the first week of August, 1898, to visit corn- fields in flocks of from 12 to 20 and eat from roasting ears. Gold- finches were troublesome in ripening oats on the Hungerford farm during the last week of June, 1899. A flock of a hundred*spent most of the day swaying on bending oat stems. Four were collected, but singularly enough no grain was in their stomachs. On an acre of the field where the birds usually assembled, 5 percent of the crop was lost from the breaking down of stalks. If the mourning dove and the bobwhite do harm to grain it is so slight as to escape notice. The dove, however, has been taken with a few kernels of sprouting wheat in its crop.” Both birds eat a good deal of waste grain in stubble-fields. On August 31, 1898, in lot +, there was a flock of at least 30 doves in the wheat stubble of the Bryan farm, and at the same time there were two smaller flocks on the Hungerford place. In November, 1899, the flock on the upper part of the farm fed with the bobwhites on wheat stubble, and, like them, did not appear to relish corn dropped from the ear in fields where they were searching for weed seed. There was considerable diversity of feeding habits among different flocks of bobwhites on the two farms. One flock on the Bryan farm during November and December, 1900, was seldom seen on a patch of wheat stubble adjacent to their cover, the oak woods of lot 5. Hawks were numerous there, however, and may have frightened the birds away from what would ordinarily have been a tempting feeding ground. A large covey on the lower part of the Hungerford farm, where no wheat had been raised, fed entirely on weed seed, but one at the upper end spent about all the feeding time in wheat stubble. This covey had a habit of sleeping in a peach orchard, as was attested by little rings of dung showing where the birds had squatted in a circle with heads out and tails in. From six of these rings, representing as many days’ feeding, 300 droppings were col- lected. Remains of wheat, or more strictly speaking, fragments of bran from one-fifth of a millimeter to 5 millimeters in length, formed 85 percent of them. A bird of this covey had in its crop 160 whole 4In Essex County, N. J., the dove does much damage in newly sown fields of buckwheat. 70 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. grains, and in its stomach other wheat half digested, all amounting to 91 percent of its food. The next year bobwhites were noted feeding in wheat stubble in lot 3 (PI. XII, fig. 2). In November, 1900, observa- tions were made in « cornfield in which the tops of the stalks had been removed for fodder, leaving the ears attached to low stalks. In many places kernels had dropped to the ground, but the hobwhites that frequented the field to procure weed seed apparently did not touch them. These desultory data would seem to indicate that the bob- white takes only waste wheat and does not relish corn, but observa- tions made in November, 1901, on lot 5 of the Bryan farm, when the corn was in the stack (Pl. XII, fig. 1), does not confirm this supposi- tion; for in this case the birds fed to a certain extent on the waste kernels of corn scattered on the ground. The meadowlark is much less granivorous than these two species, but it often picked up wheat in stubble-fields just after harvest and late in the fall. One specimen obtained November 29, 1900, con- tained 70 percent of wheat. The cardinal was occasionally seen feed- ing on waste wheat and corn along the edge of stubble-fields. The English sparrow, the crow, the crow blackbird, the red-wing, and the cowbird are also stubble feeders. On the 5th of August, 1898, fully a thousand crow blackbirds with a few redwings were noted picking up waste grain in the wheat and oat stubble of the Hungerford farm. If such a horde of these birds were present at harvest time, complaints would be made against them as serious as those now heard from the Mississippi Valley. During the blizzard of February, 1900, several birds obtained food from the droppings of farm animals. English sparrows and crows were seen picking corn from dung in the hog pen on the Hungerford farm, and meadowlarks, horned larks, doves, and cardinals were noticed taking it from cow droppings in an open pasture. The native sparrows, unlike the English sparrows, have little or no liking for grain. In a field of wheat on the Bryan farm 5 English sparrows and 19 native sparrows, including song, field, chipping, and grasshopper sparrows, were collected, just before and just after the crop was cut. All the English sparrows were gorged with wheat, but only 2 native sparrows—a chipping sparrow and a grasshopper spar- row—had eaten it, and they had taken only a single kernel apiece. Moreover, when winter wheat sprouted, the hosts of native sparrows from the North that were running over the fields could not be detected doing it any injury. VI.— WEED SEED. Weed seed is a staple article of diet for practically all seed-eating birds. It formed 18 percent of the food of the whole number of birds collected, and had been eaten by 162. Lists of these birds and of the 41 kinds of seeds that they selected are appended. WEED SEED. 71 List of weed-sved eaters and weed seed eaten, SPECIES OF BIRDS WHOSE “STOMACHS CONTAINED WEED SEED. Bobwhite. Rusty blackbird. Chipping sparrow. Mourning dove. Crow blackbird. Field sparrow. Horned lark. Goldfinch. Junco. Bobolink. Savanna sparrow. Song sparrow. Cowbird. Grasshopper sparrow. Cardinal. Red-winged blackbird. White-throated sparrow. Carolina chickadee. Meadowlark. Tree sparrow. SPECIES OF WEED SEED EATEN. Bull thistle (Carduus lanceolatus). Beggar-ticks ( Bidens frondosa). Sneezeweed ( Heleniuin autumnale). Ragweed (.{mbrosia artemisiefolia, fig. 27 ). Giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida). Sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) . Dandelion ( Taraxacum taraxacum, fig. 27 ). Wild lettuce (Lactiuca spicata). Black bindweed (Polygonum convolviulis, fig. 27). Pennsylvania persicaria ( Polygonum penn- sylvanicum). Knotweed (Polygonum «aviculare). Climbing false buckwheat (Polygonum scandens). Bitter dock (Rumew obtusifolius). Curled dock (Rumex crispus). Sheep sorrel (Rume.w acelosella). Crab-grass (Panicum sanguinale). Pigeon-grass (Chatochlou glauca, fig 27). Green foxtail grass (Chetochloa viridis). Broom-sedge (Andropogon rirginicus). Sheathed rush-grass (Sporobolus raginie- florus). Poverty grass (Aristida sp.). Yard grass (Eleusine indica). Bermuda grass (Capriola dactylon). Paspalum (Paspalum sp. ). Sedge (Cyperus). Sassafras (Sassafras sassafras). Blackberry (Rubus villosus). Pokeberry (Phytolacea decandra). Partridge pea (Cassia chamecrista). Sweet clover (Melilotus alba). Tick-trefoil (Meibomia nudifiora). Snowdrops ( Kneiffia fruticosa). Chickweed (Alsine media). Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus, 27). fig. Trumpet creeper ( Tecoma radicans). Yellow sorrel ( Oxalis stricta). Rib-grass (Plantago lanceolata). = Spurge (Euphorbia maculata, fig. 27). eaten by birds: u, bindweed; b, lamb’s-quarters; ¢, purslane; d, amaranth; e, spotted spurge; J, ragweed; g, pigeon-grass; A, dandelion. Lamb’s-quarters ( Chenopodium album, fig. 27). Purslane (Portulaca oleracea, fig. 27). Jewel-weed (Impatiens). 72 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. WEED DESTRUCTION BY NATIVE SPARROWS. Spring —The farmer’s strongest allies in his campaign against weeds are the various species of native sparrows (PI. XIII), which are a potent aid every month in the year, though chiefly in the colder months. The value of their work, obvious in fall and winter, is less easily appraised in spring and early summer, but may be suggested by a few notes. The sparrows that breed on the farm have to content themselves early in the spring with seeds left from the preceding year, but by the middle of May they find in fields that have lain fallow all winter, or that were in corn the previous season, a plentiful supply of the ripening seeds of chickweed and, a little later, of yellow sorrel. Song sparrows were seen (May 18, 1899) on the edges of such fields helping themselves liberally from opening chickweed pods. Chipping spar- rows were noted (May 30, 1896) far out in a patch of corn stubble feeding on yellow sorrel that was going to seed, and a chipping spar- row and a field sparrow collected June 16 and 17, 1898, had eaten seeds of the same weed. Summer.—During the second week in July, 1898, a song sparrow was often seen following lines of knotweed in the road along the bluff, and a telescope showed that it was plucking off the newly ripened seeds. At the same time another song sparrow, killed on the edge of a timothy field, and two grasshopper sparrows from the center of the same field, had eaten seeds of rib-grass, which at the time was a bad weed in the timothy. During August the seed-eating of sparrows is sufficiently noticeable to attract the attention of even a casual observer, for by this time great stores of weed seed have ripened and the young sparrows, which have been exclusively insectivorous, are ready to take vegetable food. The following notes merely give a few specific cases that might have been multiplied many times every day. A song sparrow was observed (August 28, 1898) picking out soft immature seeds from a spike of green fox-tail grass, a plant that, with its con- gener pigeon-grass, furnishes seed-eating birds with favorite food. On the same date a score of chipping sparrows were noted amid crab- grass, which was spreading so rapidly through a market garden in a pear orchard, on the Bryan place that it was likely to impair the product. They hopped up to the fruiting stalks, which were then in the milk, and beginning at the tip of one of the several spikes that radiated from a common center like the spokes of a wheel and, grad- ually moving their beaks along to the base, they chewed off the seeds of spike after spike in regular succession. Usually they did not remove their beaks until they reached the base, though some individ- uals, especially birds of the year, would munch a few seeds in the middle of a spike and then take a fresh one. Fourteen birds were col- PLATE XIII. Bull. 17, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. FouR COMMON SEED-DESTROYING SPARROWS. 1, Junco: 2, white-throated sparrow; 3, fox sparrow; 4, tree sparrow. Bull, 17, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. PLATE XIV. Fia. 1.—GIANT RAGWEED IN GARDEN. Fia. 2.—BROOM-SEDGE APPROPRIATING LAND. WEED SEED. 73 lected from this orchard and 10 from other parts of the farm. Crab- grass seeds were found to haye formed 54 percent of their food, one stomach containing 150 seeds. Most of the remaining: 46 percent consisted of such weeds as green fox-tail grass, yellow sorrel, spotted spurge, and purslane, with a very small quantity of ragweed. Other sparrows were found feeding on crab-grass and the foregoing weeds during the last week of August and the first part of September, 1898. It is important to remember at this point that each of the sparrows that live on the farm in summer, namely, the song, chipping, field, and grasshopper sparrows, has its own peculiar habitat, and to note that the consequent diversity of feeding ranges makes their work more or less complementary, hence more valuable. Autumn to late spring.—From autumn to late spring evidence of the seed-eating habits of sparrows is so plain that he who runs may read. The influx of northern migrants has by this time increased the sparrow population several-fold, and as the leaves have fallen and the crops have been cut, the lively flocks diving here and there among the brown weeds to feed are familiar adjuncts of every roadside, fence row, and field. Sparrows were collected only during November, 1899, February, 1900, and April, 1899. Inall, 76 were taken, which comprised 25 song spar- rows, 23 white-throats, 12 field sparrows, 11 juncos, 3 chipping sparrows, a grasshopper sparrow, and a savanna sparrow. Seventy percent of their food was weed seed, and the proportion would have been much larger if the birds collected in April could have been taken in March, for they had eaten of the abundant April insects almost to the exclu- sion of seeds. Field observations.—The mere examination of stomachs does not give an adequate notion of the extent and the methods of weed-seed eating. It was not feasible to collect stomachs enough to show the character- istics of all the birds of the farm. A few minutes’ field observation, however, would often tell what a large flock was doing in cases where it would have been impossible to collect more than a few individuals. Several notes are cited below to illustrate the sparrow’s work, which begins, as has already been said, before the seeds are ripe, and con- tinues throughout fall and winter and even far into spring. In a rank weedy growth of crab-grass and green fox-tail grass in the truck plot of lot 3 a flock of 20 juncos was watched for half an hour, November 15, 1899, as they breakfasted on seeds. At this time most of the seeds had fallen and the birds picked them up under the plants instead of taking them from the stalks as the chipping sparrows had done in August. On the following day the same flock, with about an equal number of white-throated sparrows and song sparrows, flew to the wheat stubble of lot 38, beside the negro cabin, and busily gathered fallen seeds of ragweed which had made a rank growth there. 4 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. This weed is troublesome at Marshall Hall; it chokes the crops on truck lands, gains a foothold in pastures, making milk bitter and unsalable, and is so pestiferous in hayfields that it has to be removed by agleaner. Fortunately, however, it is palatable to seed-eating birds, and it probably furnishes them a larger proportion of their food than any other plant on the farm, a fact which doubtless prevents much greater trouble and loss. Another harmful weed is broom- sedge. It is ruinous to mowing and pasture, and spreads so readily that if undisturbed it would in time take possession of all the fields (Pl. XIV, fig. 2). Juncos, field sparrows, tree sparrows, and probably Fig. 28—Field sparrow. other species check it to some extent. As has been said before, field sparrows and tree sparrows are usually to be found associated with it. In the higher part of the hog lot a flock of field sparrows (fig. 28) dur- ing the middle of November, 1899 and 1900, spent most of their time swaying on broom-sedge stalks, from which they were busily extract- ing seeds. Sometimes a bird alighting on a plant would bend it to the ground and hold it down with its feet while picking out the seeds; seldom would one feed from the ground in any other manner. At the same time a flock of about 30 field and tree sparrows along Persimmon Branch behind the truck plot of lot 3 were also feeding on broom-sedge. WEED SEED. 75 Au intéresting illustration of tree sparrows’ habits was noticed on the Hungerford farm during a heavy snowstorm in the third week of February, 1900. Here and there, where the whiteness of the field was pierced by phalanxes of dry broom-sedge, a flock of a dozen or more tree sparrows found good cheer in spite of the driving flakes. From one brown patch to another they flew, clinging to the plants while they plucked out the seeds, seldom leaving a stalk unexplored. Frequently two would feed from a single stalk, while a third, made thrifty by the wintry dearth, hopped in the snow below searching for scattered seeds. The snow whirled in clouds across the field, but these little creatures, inured to northern tempests, worked on with cheerful, hardy indus- try. Several days later a flock of more than 200 sparrows, chiefly juncos and tree sparrows, with some song sparrows and white-throats, were ob- served feeding on a piece of truck land between two bushy brooks where weeds grew rank, in places over- topping a man’s head. The snow beneath was every- where delicately marked with interlacing tracks, which showed how thorough had been the search for food. One space 50 yards square had hardly a square yard that was free from the prints of tiny feet. The main harvest of ragweed seeds lay buried under the snow, but remnants still clung to the stalks, and lamb’s-quarters and amaranth were well laden. Under all these plants thickly scattered chaff and seed coats bore wit- ness to the birds’ work. Fig, 29.—Goldfinch. WEED DESTRUCTION BY OTHER BIRDS. Goldfinch—Goldfinches (fig. 29) would be as valuable as sparrows if they wereas numerous. Like sparrows, they destroy weeds throughout the year. In spring their first fresh supply comes from the dandelion. On May 18, 1899, three males and two females hopped about among the dandelion globes in the Bryan front yard, every now and then perching crosswise on the stalks and devouring the seeds. In June goldfinches often visited the field daisy (Zrigeron ramosus), and in July the purple aster (Vernonia) and the wild carrot (Daucus carota). In these cases they appeared to be picking out immature seeds, and 76 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. F one bird that was shot contained a soft mass of such food. The habit of feeding on thistles, which has given the species its common name of ‘thistle bird,’ was well exemplified one day in August, 1898. A thistle on which a goldfinch had been feeding was examined and on its leaves and the ground beneath 67 seeds were counted. They appeared perfect, but close inspection showed a slit through which the meaty kernel had been deftly removed. On the 30th and 31st of August, 1898, the goldfinch was seen eating seeds of the sow thistle and of wild lettuce. September 7, 1896, six birds were banqueting on seeds of beggar-ticks which had appropriated several square rods in an outfield and threatened to give trouble in subsequent seasons. Four young- sters, so recently fledged that they allowed me to approach within 10 feet of them, gave an excellent opportunity (September 21, 1896) to observe how goldfinches feed on ragweed. Often they would all alight on the same plant at once, then they would wrench off the seeds, crack them, extract the meat, and drop the shell, their actions resem- bling those of a canary at its seed cup. In one instance three alighted ona very small plant, which under their weight bent to the ground. Nothing daunted, they clung to the sprays, heads downward, until they touched the earth, then, shifting their position so as to hold the stems under their feet, went on with their meal. About the middle of November, 1900, a flock of 300 goldfinches were noted perching in Juxuriant ragweed on truck land of the Hungerford farm, industriously stripping off seeds. The work of such an army must have caused decided limitation of the next year’sgrowth. During the third week of February, 1900, a flock of about 50 were seen in a tangle of trumpet creeper on the edge of the bluff (Pl. VI, fig. 1). They were clinging to the long, partly opened pods, extracting seeds, and the refuse of their meal madea continual flurry of floating empty seed wings. Dur- ing four minutes six birds that were somewhat isolated dropped 57 of these seed wings. Feeding on the trumpet creeper proved to be habitual with the goldfinch and must have prevented many seeds from spreading inland over lot 3 before the prevailing river winds. The plant is a mischievous weed at Marshall Hall. In 1898 it choked out the oats in one part of a patch and twined around nearly half the corn- stalks in a field near the river. It was bad in truck plots during 1899 and 1900, and always makes the breaking up of old pastures a serious undertaking for man and horse. It may be mentioned in passing that the downy woodpecker has also been seen picking out these winged seeds, as well as taking mullein and ragweed seeds from the stalk. Purple Finch.—The purple finch, though it habitually feeds in trees, often destroys seeds of noxious plants. On the 15th and 16th of November, 1900, a thicket of giant ragweed that had made a 10-foot growth in the Bryan kitchen garden (Pl. XIV, fig. 1) was gay with a flock of 30 finches that hung on the sprays while they stripped off the WEED SEED. U7 seeds as the goldfinches had. One bird that was watched with a glass ate 15 seeds-in three minutes. Chickadee.—The Carolina chickadee, though largely ee ee was also frequently seen hanging head downwards in ragweed plants wrenching off seeds. Cardinal.—The cardinal, when observed on arable land, was a deni- zen of hedgerows. It was not abundant like finches and sparrows, but was not uncommon in loose flocks of ten or a dozen. In company with sparrows it often foraged a little way out from cover for the larger weed seeds, and was seen picking up seeds of both small and giant ragweed. It has a peculiar habit, shared by the fox sparrow, and seen sometimes in the song sparrow and the white-throat, of cracking and eating the seeds of berries and other fleshy fruits; a habit probably useful, especially when seeds of the blackberry and other fruiting plants that invade cultivated land are selected. Blackbirds.—The large flocks of crow blackbirds on the farm, often numbering from 2,000 to 3,000, have been previously referred to. If they were not notorious grain thieves they would be famous weed destroyers. Evénas it is they were sometimes seen eating weed seeds, and in spring, when grain is lacking, they probably do considerable good. During fall and spring of the years 1899, 1900, and 1901, flocks of from 50 to 100 cowbirds, and often several hundred red- winged blackbirds, and occasionally as many as a thousand rusty blackbirds, assembled on the farm. They fed on ragweed of wheat stubble and among weeds of truck areas, and doubtless destroyed an incalculable number of seeds. The cowbird and the red-winged black- bird, according to Professor Beal, feed on weed seed to the extent of more than half their annual food and during. most of the colder half of the year at least four-fifths. Meadowlark.—The meadowlark, though it gets two-thirds of its living from insects, has in the colder months a voracious appetite for seeds. On the Hungerford farm in November, 1899 and 1900, were two flocks of meadowlarks, and on the Bryan farm a single flock some- what scattered, numbering altogether about 50 individuals. They usually divided their time among the weeds of cornfields both old and new, the ragweed of wheat stubble, and the miscellaneous weeds of truck land. On one occasion birds were seen eating seeds of pigeon- grass in the last situation, and on another picking up seeds of ragweed. Mourning Dove.— After the breeding season there were three flocks of dovesand three of bobwhites distributed likethe meadowlarks. Each flock of doves contained between 20 and 30 individuals. One, on the Bryan place, fed in weedy old cornfields, and, after the wheat had been harvested, amid the ragweed of wheat stubble, which by August was 18 inches high. A bird killed from this flock had eaten, in addition 78 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. to other food, seeds of yellow sorrel, spotted spurge, crab-grass, and pigeon-grass. Another, on the upper part of the Hungerford place, foraged in the ragweed of wheat and oat stubble, and in a heavy crop of crab-grass and pigeon-grass in a cornfield that was being harvested. The stomach of one of these birds, taken November 17, 1899, contained 150 ragweed seeds, and another 300 crab-grass seeds. The third, on the lower part of this farm, were not seen in stubble-fields, but fre- quented forests of weeds in certain orchards and truck plots, and apparently made their whole fare on the seeds. During the heavy snow of February, 1900, doves fed in a wind-swept pasture, some- times appearing to pick up weed seeds, and sometimes assembling in two pits 10 feet in diameter and 6 feet deep, where abundantly fruited plants of pokeberry were growing. At five different times the flock, numbering more than 20, was flushed from the pits. Footprints and red stains on the snow showed that they were eating berries and prob- ably their seeds, some of which were found on the ground after the snow had melted. Fruit-eating birds, which take the berries of this plant, void the seeds uninjured and thus disseminate them, but doves grind them to atoms by the powerful action of their gizzards. Bobwhite—One covey of the bobwhites, which has already been described as feeding largely on wheat in its season, lived on the upper part of the Hungerford place; another, still larger, which to judge from its droppings took practically no grain, lived on the lower part; and a third lived on the Bryan farm. One bird from the first covey, 7 from the second, and 5 from the third were shot and examined. These 13 had taken weed seed to the extent of 63 percent of their food. Thirty-eight percent was ragweed, 2 percent tick-trefoil, partridge pea, and locust seeds, and 23 percent seeds of miscellaneous weeds, such as pigweed, sheep sorrel, Pennsylvania persicaria, climbing false buckwheat, trumpet creeper, paspalum, jewel-weed, and pigeon-grass. Though the stomachs and crops were not well filled, the birds had eaten 5,582 weed seeds. One crop contained 400 pigweed seeds, another 500 seeds of ragweed. The latter seeds, which are cracked open by most birds, are swallowed whole by bobwhites and doves, in spite of the spiny processes which beset them. One bobwhite, in addition to other food, had consumed 550 seeds of sheep sorrel; another 640 seeds of pigeon-grass; and several 50 to 100 seeds of jewel-weed. Extent of weed-seed destruction.—Inspection of an acre of truck land between two converging bushy brooks on the Hungerford farm (November 16, 1899), gave a very satisfactory idea of the autumn work of weed-destroying birds. Crab-grass and pigeon-grass formed a low undergrowth, while lamb’s-quarters, pigweed, and giant rag- weed from 6 to 10 feet high rose in a thick weed forest. A flock of 15 quail foraged in the center of the area, 25 doves were scattered over the upper end, and fully 200 native sparrows scurried about at the SPECIES. 79 lower end, while a band of 300 goldfinches clung to the ragweed stalks plucking off seeds. If we make the fair assumption that the birds remained on this acre of plenty long enough to obtain a full meal, we can reckon approximately the destruction wrought. At a moderate estimate 20 seeds apiece may be allowed for the goldfinches, 100 for the sparrows, providing that they were from crab-grass or pigeon-grass, and 500 for the doves and bobwhites, or a total of 46,000 seeds destroyed at a single breakfast. In the last week of April an attempt was made to ascertain what proportion of the weed seeds ripening on the farm had been consumed during the previous half year. In the wheat field of lot 4, where at the beginning of October there had been scores of seeds on every rag- weed plant, it was difficult to find in a fifteen-minute search half a dozen remaining. In the truck plot of lot 3, which had borne a thick growth of pigeon-grass, examination of an area where there had been hundreds of seeds the autumn before would sometimes fail to disclose ofie, and in a mat of crab-grass in the same field frequently not one was left out of a thousand present in October. VII.—SPECIES. Having discussed under the heads of insects, flesh, fruit, grain, and weed seed the elements that entered into the food of the birds at Marshall Hall, we may now enumerate the birds themselves and indi- cate as far as possible the economic status of each with reference to this particular farm.? WATER BIRDS. The data concerning water birds are so limited as almost to preclude anything more than a list of species. GREBES. The horned grebe (Colymbus auritus) has been noted on the river at Marshall Hall in December on two occasions. f sap must have been an exhausting drain, but it was not the sole cause of death. Beetles of the flat-headed apple borer, attracted by the 90 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. exuding sap, had oviposited in the holes, and the next generation, having thus gained an entrance, had finished the deadly work beyun by the sapsuckers. Holes made by birds are sometimes closed by burl-like knobs of wood, but if they remain open the death of the tree from borers is very likely to result. In the case of the trees killed at Marshall Hall, galleries made by borers had honeycombed the wood beneath the section of bark riddled by the sapsuckers. Only 2 stomachs of sapsuckers were collected. They were taken during the middle of November, 1899 and 1900, and contained several dung-beetles (Aphodius) and the fruit of woodbine and red cedar. The red-headed woodpecker is not common at Marshall Hall, though it was seen in small numbers every fall. One specimen taken Novem- Fig. 32.—Flicker. ber 29, 1900, among the swamp oaks south of lots 4 and 5, had eaten gall insects (Cynipide) and many bits of the woody tissue of the gall. This woodpecker makes about half its food on vegetable matter, largely mast with some berries, and selects for its insect food chiefly beetles, ants, and grasshoppers. It is, on the whole, useful. The flicker (fig. 32), though nesting on the farm, was common only during migration, when it was seen in flocks of from 6 to 12. A stomach collected in the middle of November, 1899, contained 10 ground-beetles (including Anisodactylus, Harpalus pennsylvanicus, and Pterostichus sayi), 5 ants, 1 sow bug, 1 black cricket and skin, and 20 seeds of woodbine berries. The flicker is somewhat more insectiy- SPECIES. 91 orous than the redhead. Its vegetable food usually consists of a little mast and a good deal of wild fruit. It is less of a woodpecker than any other species of the family, for it is much less arboreal and spends alarge part of the time on the ground securing ants with its long sticky tongue. As many as 5,000 ants have been taken from one stomach. So important is this article of diet that it forms three- fourths of the insect food of the species. WHIP-POOR-WILLS, NIGHT-HAWKES, SWIFTS, AND HUMMING- BIRDS. Whip-poor-wills (Antrostomus vociferus) and night-hawks (Chor- deiles virginianus), two exclusively insectivorous species, are highly useful. The former was frequently heard, and the latter was fre- quently seen in late summer as it soared over the farm after ants. The chimney swift (Chetura pelagica) is, as might be expected, wholly insectivorous. Three birds collected July 18, 1898, had caught the following insects on the wing: One small bee (Andrenide), 3 bugs (Heteroptera), and 34 weevils (Sttones hispidulus). The ruby-throated hummingbird (Zrochilus colubris) feeds on insects and the nectar of flowers. During the last of May it visited the flowers of the persimmon, in June the honeysuckle, and later tobacco and the trumpet creeper. A bird that was shot fresh from a trumpet flower had eaten 1 little green bee (Andrenide) and 1 minute spider. FLYCATCHERS. The following species of flycatchers have been noted at Marshal] Hall: Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Muscivora forficata). Noted by Mr. O. N. Bryan. Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), 16. Great crested flycatcher (Myiarchus crinitus), 4. Pheebe (Sayornis phebe), 3. Wood pewee (Contopus virens), 11. Acadian flycatcher (Empidonax virescens) , 1. Sixteen kingbirds were collected from May 28 to July 30. Insects formed 71 percent and fruit 29 percent of their food. The fruit con- sisted of cherries, sassafras, wild and cultivated mulberries, elder, and blackberries. The proportion of insect food was not so large as is typical for the species, a circumstance resulting probably from the readiness with which fruit could be obtained. Beetles constituted 37 percent of the food, grasshoppers and crickets 23 percent, ants and bees 4 percent, parasitic wasps 2 percent, miscellaneous insects, includ- ing caterpillars and bugs, 3 percent, and spiders 2 percent. Among the miscellaneous insects were a stink bug (Hymenarcys nervosa), an assassin bug (Sznea diadema), and a whole cabbage butterfly (Prercs rape). The bees included small wild species (Andrenide) and drones 92 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. of honey bees. The parasitic wasps included forms of the families Ichneumonide and Scoliide. Of the beetles, which were by all means the most interesting element of the insect food, ground-beetles (includ- ing Anisodactylus and Cratacanthus dubius) furnished 2 percent, tiger- beetles, soldier-beetles (Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus), and dung- beetles (Atzenius and Aphodius) 3 percent, and injurious beetles of the following. species 30 percent: Rose-chafer (Macrodactylus subspinosus). Locust leaf-mining beetle (Odontota dor- ...... Southern June-beetle (Allorhina nitida). salis) . Shining leaf-chafer (Anomala). Blister-beetle (EHpicautu cinerea). Sad flower-beetle( Zuphoria melancholica). Asparagus-beetle ( Crioceris asparagi). Long- -horned beetles (including Leptura). Aspar agus-beetles and blister-beetles are scarcely ever eaten by other birds and rose-chafers seldom; hence the service rendered by the - kingbird in destroying these insects and others of an injurious charac- ter in large numbers makes it one of the most valuable allies of the farmer. . Of the remaining flycatchers collected, the wood pewee and the Acadian flycatcher are purely insectivorous, and the phcebe and the great crested flycatcher, though subsisting chiefly on insects, quite often, especially in late summer, vary their fare with fruit. One Acadian flycatcher was collected. It had eaten a spider, a parasitic wasp, a long-horned beetle, a leaf-beetle (Crepidodera), and a banded-winged horsefly (Chrysops). Of 11 wood pewees all had taken beetles, including click-beetles, long- horned beetles (Leptura rubrica), dung-beetles (Onthophagus pennsyl- vanicus), soldier-beetles (Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus), locust leaf- mining beetles (Odontota dorsalis) and a related leaf-beetle (Hemonia nigricornis), and weevils of the species Phytonomus punctatus and Sphenophorus zex. Seven had destroyed parasitic wasps, including Braconidee, Evaniide, Ichneumonide (Afesostenus and others), and Scoliide (Ziphia tnornata); 4 had eaten flies (Chironomus, Sapro- myza vulgaris, Lucilia cesar, and other muscid flies); 1 had taken a moth; and 3 had eaten, respectively, a caddis-fly, a May-beetle, and a spider. Although the wood pewee destroys large numbers of injuri- ous insects, especially beetles, it feeds so eagerly on the useful para- sitic wasps that its scarcity at Marshall Hall was perhaps fortunate for the owners of the farms. Three pheebe (fig. 33) stomachs were collected. Their contents were chiefly beetles of the following kinds: Anisodactylus. Lachnosterna. Cicindela. Odontota dorsalis. Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus, Orsodachna. atra. Canthon. Collops quadrimaculatus. Aphodius inquinatus. Lema trilineata. Onthophagus pennsylvanicus. SPECIES. 93 In smaller numbers the birds had eaten flying ants, parasitic wasps, and other wasps, bugs, caddis-flies, and spiders. One had tasted blackberries. Four great crested flycatchers were collected in May. Their stomachs contained May-tlies, ants (Cum ponotus pennsylvandicus and other forms), parasitic wasps (Ichneumonidae, Scoliide (Z/phia) and Evaniide), bugs (Euschistus and Nezura hilar’s), and beetles (Curculionide, Elateride, Cicindela sexaguttata, Dicercau, and Odontota dorsalis). Despite their Fig. 338.—Pheebe. taste for parasitic wasps both pheebe and great crested flycatcher are in the main useful on account of the large number of insect pests they destroy. HORNED LARKS. When the horned lark (Otocoris alpestris) occurred at, Marshall Hall, as it did occasionally in severe winter weather, it subsisted almost entirely on seeds, largely weed seeds, often with waste grain. A bird collected during the severe blizzard of February, 1900, was feeding in a wind-swept cowyard, where it secured a bit of a kernel of corn, 4 seeds of lamb’s-quarters, 8 of crab-grass, 10 of bastard pennyroyal, and 12 of ragweed. BLUE JAYS AND CROWS. Six blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata, fig. 34) were collected in May and November. All except one had taken insects. Beetles were the most important elementand comprised Chlenius estivus, Lachnosterna, ~” 94 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. Euphoria fulgida, Onthophagus, Elateride, and Curculionide. The less important element was composed of parasitic wasps, May-flies, and grasshoppers (Locustide). One bird had eaten a snail and one a spider. One had taken mulberries and all had eaten acorns. Mast formed half the total volume of food. None of these six specimens had eaten grain, which usually enters into the blue jay’s food to some extent, and in certain localities in New Hampshire that came under direct observation furnished a significant part of it. The blue jay takes about three times as much vegetable as animal food. It appears to do no harm at Marshal] Hall and consumes a fair quantity of injuri- ous beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. The common crow (Corvus americanus) was much more numerous on the farm than the fish crow (Corvus ossifragus). Four stomachs of the former species were collected. In the case of this bird, which, as has been shown, attacks poultry and grain (see pp. 50 and 65), protection Fic, 34.—Blue jay. is not desirable at Marshall Hall. Elsewhere the species may do as much good as harm, perhaps even more, but here local conditions make encouragement of its presence incompatible with prudent farming. MEADOWLARKES, BOBOLINES, AND COWBIRDS. The meadowlark (Sturnella magna) is one of the class of highly use- ful birds. It is commonly supposed to be largely vegetarian, but it really takes about three times as much animal matter as vegetable. One-third of this major part is usually composed of grasshoppers, though these insects were not abundant enough at Marshall Hall to enter largely into the food of the 7 meadowlarks collected. Injurious beetles and caterpillars, however, were taken in customary quantities. The meadowlark, which is commonly regarded as a game bird at SPECIES. 95 Marshall Hall, is frequently shot, and its valuable work as a destroyer of weed seed and insects is thus often cut off. When the bobolink (Dolichonya oryzivorus, fig. 35) tarries on the farm in its southward migration it lives wholly on the wild rice of the calamus swamp, but on its return journey in May it eats injurious insects and weed seed of the wheat and clover fields. Six stomachs were collected in May. The cowbird (Molothrus ater), as has been shown by Prof. F. E. L. Beal,? takes three times the volume of seeds that it takes of insects. Both of the 2 stomachs examined contained grasshoppers (Xiphidium and JJelanoplus) and 1 of them leaf-hoppers, two elements character- Fic. 35.—Bobolink. -istic of the insect food of the species. The bird does little damage to grain fields, and renders much service with other birds in reducing the weed-seed harvest of the farm. BLACKBIRDS AND ORIOLES. The red-winged blackbird (Agelatus pheniceus, fig. 36), however destructive to grain it may be elsewhere, does no damage in the grain- fields at Marshall Hall. Its insect food, which is to its vegetable food as one to three, is composed largely of weevils, caterpillars, and grass- «Bobolink, Blackbirds, and Grackles. Bull. No. 13, Biological Survey, Dept. of Agriculture, p. 29, 1900. 96 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. hoppers. Its good work among weeds has been previously described (see p. 77). Eight stomachs were examined, but with little significance of result, for the temporary abundance of May-flies had diverted the birds from insect pests. One stomach of the rusty blackbird (Scolecophagus carolinus) was collected April 14, 1899. It contained beetles (//arpalus and Sitones), 1 caterpillar, 1 small bee, and some waste corn. The character and extent of weed-seed destruction by rusty blackbirds on the farms at Marshall Hall has been shown on p. 77. Crow blackbirds (Quzscalus quiscula) have been proved by examina- tion of thousands of stomachs to take fully twice as much vegetable as animal food, the vegetable food being chiefly grain and fruit. And at Marshall Hall, after the young were established in life and tho hosts of Northern birds, includ- ing the subspecies Qués- calus quiscala xeneus, had arrived, systematic pil- lage of grain fields took place (see p. 67), which could be checked only by the shotgun. Twenty- five stomachs of the spe- cies were examined. The orchard oriole (Lcterus spurius) is a sum- mer resident at Marshall Hall and may usually be found nesting during the breeding season to the extent of a dozen pairs, though the present summer (1902) formed an exception to this rule, the usual number being reduced to 2 or 3. The food-of this species, as shown in 11 stomachs collected during May and June, was composed of 91 percent animal matter and 9 per- cent vegetable matter. The latter part was nearly all mulberries; the former was distributed as follows: Fly larve, 1 percent; parasitic wasps, 2 percent; ants, 4 percent; bugs, 5 percent; caterpillars, 12 percent; grasshoppers, including a few crickets, 13 percent; beetles, 14 percent; May-flies, 27 percent; spiders, 13 percent. Thus bene- ficial insects—parasitic wasps—formed only 2 percent of the food, and injurious species—caterpillars, grasshoppers, and harmful beetles— amounted to 38 percent. The Baltimore oriole (/cterus galbula) is also a highly insectivorous, useful species, but occurs at Marshall Hall only during migration. One bird was collected May 29, 1896. It had eaten mulberries, 2 small wasps, 2 fall webworms, 1 click-beetle, and 15 locust leaf-mining beetles. Bull. 17, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. PLATE XVII. Fic. 1.—BLUEBIRD AT EDGE OF NEST WITH GRASSHOPPER IN MOUTH. From photograph by Rey. P. B. Peabody. Boetnn 1 Fig. 2.-FORMER NESTING SITE OF BLUEBIRDS ON LAWN AT BRYAN Farm. The hole used by the birds may be seen about halfway to the top of the tree against which the gun is leaning. Asin Plate [ Mount Vernon is to be seen in the distance. SPECIES. 97 FINCHES AND SPARROWS. One purple finch (Carpodacus purpureus) was collected (February 20,1900) from a flock feeding on cedar berries. Examination revealed, therefore, only remains of this fruit. ; Specimens of the red crossbill (Loxia curvirostra minor) and the white-winged crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) were collected at Marshall Hall by Mr. O. N. Bryan, who presented them to the U. S. National Museum. Eleven goldfinches (Astragalinus trist’s) were collected. Insects (caterpillars) had been eaten by only one, practically all the food con- sisting of seeds, principally weed seeds. The goldfinch is probably the most useful seed-eater on the farm. Several pine siskins (Spinus pinus) were seen December 1, 1901, in company with goldfinches. The following native sparrows were noted: Vesper sparrow (Poucetes gramineus). Savanna sparrow (Ammodramus sandwichensis savanna), 1. Grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum passerinus), 10. Henslow sparrow (Ammodramus henslowi), 1. White-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis), 17. Tree sparrow (Spizella monticola), 9. Chipping sparrow (Spizella socialis), 61. Field sparrow (Spizella pusilla), 31. unco (Junco hyemalis), 11. Song sparrow (Melospiza melodia), 36. Lincoln sparrow (JMMelospiza lincolni). Fox sparrow (Passerella iliaca). From May to September, inclusive, half the food of field, song, chipping, and grasshopper sparrows consists of insects. The grass- hopper sparrow is the most insectivorous of the four, but a descrip- tion of the insect food taken by it at Marshall Hall will serve, because of similarity, to indicate that of the other three. The main part was composed of beetles, caterpillars, and grasshoppers. The beetles included Svtones hispidulus, Drasterius, Systena elonguta, Systena blanda, Colaspis brunnea, Anisodactylus, and Atenius. The caterpillars belonged chiefly to the family Noctuide, including many cutworms and army worms. Caterpillars of the family Geome- tridee were occasionally eaten. The grasshoppers were of the genera Xiphidium, Scudderia, Melanoplus, Hipprscus, and Dissosteira. The following bugs also had been eaten: Cortzus, Trichopepla semivittata, Hymenarcys nervosa, and Alydus pilosulus. Spiders were frequently taken. The chipping and field sparrows sometimes destroy small numbers of useful parasitic wasps, and the song sparrow now and then eats the less beneficial smaller ground-beetles. The insectivorous habits of all 7222—No. 17—02——7 98 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. these native species are, on the whole, however, extremely valuable to man. The consumption of weed seeds, the chief service of these birds as well as of those that visit the farm only in the colder season, has already been emphasized (see p. 72). For a detailed account of the food habits of sparrows the reader is referred to ‘The Relation of Sparrows to Agriculture.’“ As there shown, and as set forth in the first part of this bulletin (see p. 17), the English sparrow differs radically in habits from the native sparrows and is a pest that should be exterminated. One towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) was. taken September 9, 1896. Its stomach was found to contain a locust leaf-mining beetle, a weevil, a ground-beetle, a bug, a cricket, 6 ants, and remains of broken seeds. Ten cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) were collected from February to November, inclusive, with the omission of March. Twenty-two percent of their food consisted of animal matter (insects and spiders) and 78 percent of vegetable matter (half fruit and half seeds). Of the minor proportion, bugs formed 1 percent; spiders, May-flies, and grasshoppers, each 2 percent, and beetles 15 percent. The beetles were as follows: Agrilus egenus, Dicerca obscura, Macrodactylus sub- spinosus, Donacia, Odontota dorsalis, Lyperplatys aspersus, Anisodac- tylus agricola. On November 29, 1901, two cardinals were noted eating seeds of the tulip tree. One stomach of the indigo bird (Cyanospiza cyanea) was examined. It held 1 beetle (Agri/us egenus) and a little vegetable débris. TANAGERS. At Marshall Hall tanagers were never detected pilfering cultivated fruit, as they have often been known to do elsewhere. One summer tanager (Piranga rubra), collected August 5, 1898, had eaten wild blackberries, a bee (Agapostemon), and a scoliid wasp. Three scarlet tanagers (Piranga erythromelas), taken in May and August, had fed exclusively on insects, which comprised a bee (Halée- tus), parasitic wasps, white ants, a soldier bug (Wezara hilaris), click-beetles, darkling-beetles (Zfelops micans), anid the sad flower- beetle (Luphoria melancholica). SWALLOWS. The following swallows were noted: Purple martin (Progne subis), 2. Barn swallow (Hirundo erythrogastra), 10. White-bellied swallow ( Tachycineta bicolor), 5. Bank swallow (Riparia riparia), 6. Rough-winged swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis), 7. «The Relation of Sparrows to Agriculture. Bull. No. 15, Biological Survey, Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, 1901. SPECIES. 99 Thirty swallows, collected between the middle of May and the middle of August, had eaten nothing but insects. Parasitic wasps and bees formed 2 percent of their food (less than usual with aerial feeders), bugs 3 percent, May-flies 8 percent, beetles 13 percent, white ants 21 percent, ants 83 percent, and miscellaneous insects, principally flies with a few bugs, 20 percent. The forms selected were bees of the family Andrenidw, and parasitic wasps of the families Scoliide, Ich- neumonide, and Chalcidide. The beetle food was interesting, for besides click-beetles, dung-beetles (Aphodius inquinatus, Lister, Ate- nius, and Onthophagus pennsylvanicus), weevils of several species, and metallic woodborers (Agrilus), it included the engraver beetles (among them Tomicus cacographus), which are destroyed by only few other birds. The food of swallows is peculiar in its lack of caterpillars and grasshoppers, which are so important to the subsist- ence of other birds. As with flycatchers, the number of flies taken is generally overestimated. In the stomachs examined were found snipe-flies (Leptide), golden-green flesh-flies (Zuezliu cesar), and other muscide, with an occasional banded-winged horse-fly (Chrysops). CEDAR BIRDS. The cedar bird (Ampelis cedrorum, fig. 37) is the most. frugivorous of the Marshall Hall birds. More than four-fifths of its food was Fic. 37,—Cedar bird. fruit, the remainder insects. Though often troublesome elsewhere, it does no harm here, and accomplishes some good through its slightly insectivorous habit. Five stomachs were collected in May. One con- tained cherries, one mulberries, and a third smilax berries. Insects (locust leaf-mining beetles and May-flies) were found in three. 100 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. SHRIKES. The impaling of grasshoppers and mice by the loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) near the storage barn has already been men- tioned (see p. 54). The only other field observation was on Octo- ber 28, 1901; when a shrike near the same place was seen to kill a gar- ter snake (Zitaznia) 13 inches long. Owing to the small number of sbrikes at Marshall Hall no specimens were taken, but in order to investigate the feeding habits some experiments were carried on with a captive bird given me by Mr. William Palmer. The habit the bird has of impaling prey has been the subject of considerable speculation, some writers maintaining that it gibbets its victims alive for the pleasure of watching their death struggles, and others that it slaugh- ters more game at a time than it can eat and hangs up the surplus to provide against a time of want. This theory of prudent foresight may explain why it kills more game than it can eat, but, as the experi- ments showed, it does not touch the real reason why it impales its prey. On the day after the shrike in question was captured a dead mouse was offered it. The shrike raised its wings, moved its tail up and down petulantly after the manner of the phoebe, and then seized the mouse and dragged it about for several minutes, trying to wedge it into first one and then another corner of the cage. Failing in this effort, it tried to impale the mouse on the blunt broken end of a branch that had been placed in the cage for a perch, but the body fell to the floor. Then it tried to hold the mouse with its feet and tear it to pieces, but its feet were too weak. Ibid., vol. 19, p. 41. LEGISLATION. 19 Carolina during the same season. The value of this bird, both to the farmer and the sportsman, renders the question of its maintenance and increase one of much importance. So assiduously is the bob- white sought by sportsmen and market hunters that intelligent and concerted efforts are needed even to maintain its present numbers. LEGISLATION IN BEHALF OF BOBWHITE. In addition to natural causes, reasons for the diminished numbers of bobwhites are diversity in the open season, shooting out of sea- son, excessive shooting in season, and unrestricted shooting and trapping for market. Lack of uniformity in laws of adjoining States, and in some cases of adjoining counties, renders their observ- ance difficult and their enforcement often impossible. No other game bird has been the subject of so much legislation, which, begin- ning in New York in 1791, now extends to every State and Territory where the bird is native or has been introduced. The length of sea- son during which the bird should be protected by law is a matter of paramount importance. It goes without saving that no shooting should be permitted during the breeding season, which must be understood to last until the young of the vear are strong of wing and fully developed for the struggle for existence. Besides this the close season ought to include months of rest, during which the birds can fortify themselves for the physiological strain of the next period of reproduction. As now established -the open season varies from twenty-one days in Ohio to seven months in Mississippi. In North Carolina, however, where nearly every county has its own law, the bobwhite may be shot throughout the year in five counties. Virginia has recently abolished county laws and established uniformity, an example that other States, especially Southern States, would do well to follow. It is gratifying to note that in 1903 the open seasons were shortened by New York, Jllinois, Texas, and Virginia. In eight States—Maine, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Mon- tana, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah—the bobwhite is absolutely protected for a term of years, extending to 1920 in Colorado. Two conditions justify such prohibition of shooting. First, when ex- cessive shooting or other causes have made recuperation necessary; second, when birds just introduced into a new locality need time to establish themselves. Wherever the bird can not hold its own with an open season of three weeks absolute protection for a period of years is demanded. The length of the open season must vary with varying conditions, but in view of the general decrease of the birds there would seem to be a growing need for shortening it. The sooner Northern States limit their shooting to one month the better. Even 4 Recreation, vol, 16, p, 372, 20 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. Southern birds can not stand the present continuous fusillade of from four to seven months, and the open season in the South shouid be limited to two or, at most, three months. The slaughter of the bobwhite by sportsmen who hunt for pleasure is insignificant in comparison with that by professional market hunters. At the present time (1904), in about 25 States, the law takes cognizance of this fact by prohibiting the sale of birds killed within the State or imported from other States, and the general tendency altogether to prohibit the sale is growing each year. Every State except Mississippi forbids the sending of certain game outside the State—a restriction on the sportsman as well as the market hunter, although the privilege of carrying home a limited amount of game is often granted under a nonresident license. Fourteen States have laws, also affecting both classes, limiting a day’s bag to trom 5 to 50 birds. Many sportsmen and farmers would be glad if the limit were set at 12. Laws discriminating against nonresidents protect the game and benefit the landowner, provided visiting sports- men are not barred altogether by unreasonable fees. Thirty-one States and Territories require nonresident licenses. In addition to State game laws there are certain Federal laws, the most important of which is the Lacey Act, which provides, among other things, through the Department of Agriculture, for the preservation, distri- bution, introduction, and restoration of game birds, and also under- takes to bring to justice persons who transport from one State to another game killed in violation of local laws. The latter clause proves effective in restricting such illegal shipments and in suppress- ing professional dealers that kill out of season in one State and attempt to sell in another where the season is still open. A law to prevent keeping birds in cold storage from one season to another would stop certain loopholes in the present laws and greatly aid in preserving game. An effective system of State game officials where it is lacking would aid in enforcing game laws. A number of States depend solely on county officers; but experience has shown that with- out a central State organization and special game wardens the law to a great extent becomes a dead letter. MEASURES FOR PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION. Stringent laws against trapping the bobwhite have been enacted, but such legislation should permit legitimate trapping for purposes of propagation. One of the most important problems before game commissioners 1s the restocking of depleted covers. If, however, the bobwhite can be reared successfully in captivity, all trapping may be~prohibited. The sporting magazines (‘ Forest and Stream’ and ‘American Field’) mention cases of the bird’s laying in captivity PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION. 21 and raising its young; and in a letter to the writer, dated September 2, 1904, G. W. Jack, of Shreveport, La., says: I now have a pair of quails (bobwhites) which were trapped last winter and which I keep in a large wire coop. They have made a nest in some grass and have laid about 12 or 15 eggs. The eggs were laid very irregularly, not more than two or three a week, so that by the time the nest was full the season was far advanced, which perhaps accounts for the female not sitting. ‘The eggs were set under a hen and proved fertile, but the young were eaten by the chicken as fast as they hatched. I concluded that this irregularity or slowness in laying was the result of the lack of insect and other egg-producing food, as the birds subsist almost wholly on grain. Of late, however, they have learned to eat with much relish the yolk of an egg hard boiled. The failure of the female to sit was probably due to the unnatural confinement in so small a space, a difficulty which could readily be remedied if attempts to raise quail were made on a large scale. Unquestionably, too, it would be necessary to feed the quail, at least during the nesting period, to a considerable extent upon animal food. An instructive account of quail breeding in confinement appears in Forest and Stream for September 28, 1882 (p. 164). The female had been hatched and reared by a bantam hen, and this circumstance has an important bearing on experiments of this kind. It is altogether probable that bobwhites hatched and reared in this way would lend themselves to experiments in propagation far more readily than wild birds trapped for the purpose. The Department of Agriculture obtained three pairs of bobwhites from Kansas, which after five months’ captivity are almost as wild as when first caged and show no signs of mating. Experiments in the domestication of bobwhite are well worth trying, however, because of the demand from clubs and individuals for live birds to restock their grounds. So great has become the demand in recent years that it is estimated that 200,000 birds would be required -annually to fill it. During the spring of 1903 the demand far exceeded the supply, even at $5 a dozen, and sometimes at twice that figure. Success in increasing the numbers of bobwhite depends largely on controlling its natural enemies, which include snakes, foxes, weasels, minks, skunks, domestic cats, and certain hawks and owls. Several species of snakes eat its eggs and young. Writing from Texas, Major Bendire says: “ The many large rattlesnakes found here are their worst enemies. One killed in May had swallowed five of these birds at one meal; another had eaten a female, evidently caught on her nest, and half a dozen of her eggs; a third had taken four bob- whites and a scaled partridge.”* In Mecklenburg County, Va., the «Life Hist. N. Am. Birds [1], p. 8, 1892. 22 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. king snake (Lampropeltis getula) has been known to eat a clutch of eges. At Falls Church, Va., Harvey Riley captured a black snake (Bascanion constrictor) which disgorged a newly hatched bobwhite. Reference has been made already to the marked decrease in the number of bobwhites on the 230-acre farm at Marshall Hall, from fifty-odd birds in July to less than a dozen in December, though not more than a dozen had been shot. This decrease was probably due, at least in part, to gray foxes; for in August and September these animals were numerous, and often came after the chickens within a stone’s throw of the farmhouse. Other predaceous mammals and birds of prey were not numerous, but foxes frequently were seen at midday searching through pastures where there were broods of bob- whites. It must be easy for a fox to exterminate a whole brood of newly hatched bobwhites, and no difficult task’ to catch them even when three-fourths grown. Minks and weasels, when numerous, are probably even more destructive to young bobwhites than to domestic poultry. The domestic cat that takes to foraging in woods and fields is also a menace and should be shot on suspicion, for it undoubt- edly preys on game birds, as it is known to do on song birds and young rabbits. In Maryland and Virginia the writer has found the crow plunder- ing nests of the bobwhite, and in these States the crow is an enemy also of poultry. Doctor Fisher states in his Hawks and Owls of the United States that of the forty-odd species which he studied he found only nine that killed the bobwhite. Four of these—the goshawk, Cooper hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, and great-horned owl— are very destructive to poultry as well as game. Dr. W. C. Strode, of Bernadotte, Ill., writes that bobwhite’s worst enemy is the Cooper hawk. “A few days ago one flew up from the roadside when I was passing, and a bobwhite was dangling from one foot.” During November, 1900, this species so persecuted the birds at Marshall Hall that they were seldom found far from cover. In one instance a hawk was seen to swoop to the ground and rise with a cock bobwhite. The other species of hawks and owls rarely molest quail. If bobwhites more frequently nested along fence rows instead of in open mowing land, they would abound in many places where they are rare. The mowing machine lays many nests bare, and they are either despoiled by enemies or deserted by the old birds. At Sandy Spring, Md., early in July, 1903, four nests with their eggs were cut over in a 50-acre grass lot. In other hay fields several nests were dis- covered in time to leave grass uncut about them, but boys robbed them all. Between such lads and the crows and other enemies bob- whites haye a hard time in certain sections. To enable them to withstand the winter, bobwhites need suitable PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION. 238 food and cover. In severe winters coveys are sometimes saved by being trapped and fed in confinement until spring. Naturally the birds suffer most in the northern part of their range, but there are reports of their death from severe and protracted cold in Maryland and Virginia. Sandys says: “The birds know when the snow is coming, and they creep under the brush, intending to remain there until the weather has cleared. * * -* Then the rain comes and wets the surface all about, then the sleet stiffens it, * * * the cold becomes intense, and every foot of damp snow promptly hardens into solid ice. * * * The quail are now imprisoned beneath a dome of crystal, which may endure for days.”* H. C. Oberholser says that in severe winters in Wayne County, Ohio, whole coveys are found dead from this cause. Dr. P. L. Hatch reports that in Minnesota the birds increase in numbers during vears with mild win- ters and decrease when the winter is exceptionally severe.2- Wilson Flagg states in Birds and Seasons of New England that thousands of bobwhites were destroved by the deep snows of 1856-57. During the very severe winter of 1903-1 bobwhites were nearly exterminated iu portions of Massachusetts. That quail do not always succumb to exceptional cold appears from the fact that in Susquehanna County, Pa., at an altitude of 2,000 feet, W. W. Cooke found a covey of a dozen bobwhites apparently in the best of condition on December 9, 1902, though a foot of snow covered the ground and the thermometer stood at 20° below zero. A study of the winter habits of the bobwhite by the writer in the vicinity of Washington, D. C., so far has vielded only fragmentary results. In February, 1900, after a foot of snow had fallen, in a eare- ful two days’ search he failed to discover even a track «; a large covey that usually frequented river flats along the Potomac at Mar: shall Hall. The birds must have been under the snow or back in the timber. At Falls Church, Va., after a lighter fall of snow he saw a covey of five moving among briers on the edge of a wood, and their fresh tracks showed that they had been feeding systematically on rose hips, but had not ventured from cover. At Cabin John Bridge, Md., after a snowfall of several inches his dog pointed six birds on the south side of a river bluff, where the sun had melted holes in the snow. On one of these bare spots he saw two birds, which rose and were joined by four others. The covey had made wallows 2 inches deep in the leaf mold on the bare spots. All the birds had avoided stepping on the snow. At hand was such food as the berries of sumac and the seeds of Galactia volubilis and Chamechrista fascicularis. TFExamination of the droppings indicated that less than 24Upland Gane Birds, p. 70, 1902. > Notes on the Birds of Minnesota, p. 155, 1892, 5112—No, 21—05 m——-+4 24 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. one-tenth of the food had been animal matter, the remains of which consisted of ants, the tibie: of grasshoppers, the spotted cuticle of sol- dier bugs, and the cow-horn-like mandibles of spiders. So far as could be made out, the remains of vegetable food consisted of the skin of kernels of corn, fragments of the akenes of ragweed, and pulverized bits of sumac seeds (Rhus copallina), partridge pea (Chamechrista fasciculuris), milk pea (Galactia volubilis), and crownbeard (Ver- besina), besides unidentified leaf material. The weather had been severe for more than a week, but the birds were in good condition. On the Marshall Hall farm, a short distance back from the banks of the Potomac, is a swamp that has a steep bank with a southern exposure where there is usually more or less bare ground in patches. For several years bobwhites have made a winter haunt of this warm, sunny bank, and here some interesting observations were made Feb- ruary 18 and 19, 1902, when the snow was from 2 to 4 inches deep and the minimum temperature was 4° F. above zero. A covey had spent the night of February 17 not on the warm bank, comparatively bare of snow, but on the level above the bank, where they had squatted on the snow under a dewberry bush among broomsedge. Their feet and droppings had melted the snow, and subsequent freezing had formed an icy ring. The birds had not flown thither, but had walked from the swamp up the steep bank and through the broomsedge level. The next morning they had flown from the roost to the steep slope, had run along the edge of the swamp to a bushy, tree-bordered stream, then up its north bank for 300 yards and back on the south bank, and thence to the steep, sunny slope again. On their journey they had gone under every matted tangle of cat-brier vines—possibly for berries, but more probably for protection. At one point they had fed freely on sumac berries. The tracks of a fox were found with those of the birds for about 100 yards. On the morning of the 19th they traveled not more than 200 yards, this chiefly among outstanding willows and alders of the swamp and along the belt of land 5 to 20 yards wide between the boundary fence and the reeds of the swamp. In one place two pairs of birds had walked so near together as to cross one another’s tracks; two single birds had made clear lines of tracks on one side of them, and a single bird had walked alone on the other side from 1 to 4 feet from his nearest companion. All had evidently eaten rose hips, mutilated remains of which still clung to the bushes. The covey might have been expected to range far and wide in the open fields for seeds and even to straw ricks for grain, but except when traveling to their roost they had never gone more than a rod from cover. Apparently fear of enemies restrained them. An article in the American Field, February 25, 1899, by the well- known sportsman John Bolus, gf Wooster, Ohio, illustrates the hardi- PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION, 25 ness of the bobwhite. When several inches of snow were on the ground and the thermometer registered from 15 to 27 degrees below zero every night for a week, Mr. Bolus took a tramp to see how the birds had fared. He found no dead birds, but saw six thrifty coveys—81 birds in all. They were feeding on ragweed projecting from the snow, and were jumping up to reach seeds on sprays above their heads. Some coveys remained under shelter of little weed patches, but others ranged over the more open fields. In Maryland and Virginia large landowners often feed their birds in severe weather. Wheat and corn are the best food, and should be scattered, rf possible, among the briers where the birds are safe from hawks. Bobwhites have been known to feed with chickens in barn- yards. By a little forethought landowners and sportsmen can easily make winter provision for their birds. Sumac bushes should be left along hedgerows and the edge of woodland to furnish food that is always above the snow and lasts well into spring. Twelve bobwhites collected in December in North Dakota had made nine- tenths of their food of sumac, having eaten from 50 to 300 berries each. A similar use, in coast regions, of the bayberry and wax myrtle has been noted. Their berries, as well as those of sumae, last till May, and the plants should always be spared by everyone who is interested in the welfare of the bobwhite. Smilax, affording little food but fine cover, and wild roses, giving both food and cover, are also valuable. Blackberry thickets, young pine woods, laurel, and holly furnish safe retreats from enemies. The farmer can well afford to feed the bobwhite in winter, but he can not afford to spend as much time and money as the owner of game preserves, and for the latter class further suggestions may be helpful. In the Eastern and Southern States land that will not grow profitable crops may be used for the game preserve, provided it has water and bushy coverts. The use of the mowing machine, so destructive to eggs and young birds, should be avoided when possible during the breeding season. Wheat for the birds should be sown in long strips not over 50 yards wide. The best of the grain may be harvested and the rest left standing. On the stubble a luxuriant growth of ragweed will generally spring up—a perfect food supply, except that it does not last till spring; hence the need of sumac or bayberry. In regions too dry for ragweed to grow in the stubble. sunflowers are an excellent substitute. Sorghum, millet (Chetochloa), and possibly panicum may be planted and left standing. Pop corn will be found particu- larly valuable, as large corn can not easily be swallowed by the younger birds. Buckwheat, and in the South the nutritious cowpea, and the climbing false buckwheat, the thick tangles of which also afford good cover, bear excellent food. Other plants of the genus 26 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. Polygouum ave fond of moist land, and furnish palatable seeds for the bobwhite; for instance, black bindweed (Polygonum convolvu- lus), Pennsyleania persicaria (Persicaria pennsyleanicum), and black heart (Perstcaria lapathifolia). All wild Jeguminous plants ghould be left undisturbed, for the birds feed on seeds of most of our iegumes. Small clumps of locusts may well be left in open fields to give both food and cover. Tick trefoil, bush clover, Japan clover, the milkpea, and the wild bean—all wild plants—are suitable for tood. Of the summer fruits the dewberry is the most important, and in the absence of water furnishes a substitute; therefore these vines, nearly everywhere plentiful, should be left in places remote from water. A water supply is of course important. Streams with bush- grown banks through open fields are most valuable. Beside them will be found spreading panicum (Panicum proliferum), which shells cut its grain a kernel or two at a time until well into spring. Birds find food, shade, water, and shelter in the vegetation along small streams. Marshes also afford coyer and food. If connected with estuaries they often support a rank growth of wild rice, an ideal provision for birds. Sufficient shelter to protect the birds from hawks is almost indispensable. Oak and beech woods supply mast as well as shelter, but pines afford the best cover, and some of them, notably the longleaf pine, furnish food. .A comfortable retreat for the coldest weather is invaluable. In Maryland and Virginia fields of heavy broomsedge answer this purpose well, but best of all is a steep bank with southern exposure, where the sun quickly melts the snow, and gives the birds a chance to forage on bare spots for food and gravel. If such a bank is not far from cover, and has a growth of briers on it to give the birds a feeling of security, it will become a favorite winter haunt and during severe weather is the best place to scatter grain. With a lttle help from man the bobwhite will be found to winter well even in the northern part of its range. Bobwhite is prolific. A pair of birds under favorable conditions will raise a dozen young in a season. Then, too, it is long lived, for a bird kept in captivity is known to have reached the age of 9 years.* The outlook for the future of the species is most satisfactory, pro- vided it is given even a small amount of care, with proper legal pro- tection. The Audubon societies, with a membership of 65,000 to 70,000, which cherish the bobwhite for esthetic and humanitarian rea- sons, the sportsman who loves the whirr of its brown wings, and the farmer, whose enemies it destroys and whose resources it increases, can do much to favor the bird in its natural environment and to pro- tect it by adequate and effectively enforced laws. Forest and Stream, VII, p. 407, 1876. \ FOOD HABITS. a7 FOOD HABITS OF BOBWHTITE. Both field and laboratory investigations of the food habits of the bobwhite have been conducted by the Biological Survey. The field work was confined chiefly to Maryland and Virginia, and, although it represents in some degree every month in the year, has been limited mainly to the breeding and the hunting seasons. The laboratory work to determine the different kinds of “Pood and their proportions has included examination of the contents of crops and gizzards from 918 birds. This material was collected from 21 States, Canada, the District of Columbia, and Mexico, but chiefly from New York, Mary- jand, Virginia, Florida, Ilinois, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas. Stomachs were obtained each month of the year, but un- fortunately few were collected in the breeding season. Laboratory work included also feeding experiments with three pairs of captive bobwhites obtained from Kansas. The bird’s digestive organs are well adapted to the character of its diet. The stomach, or gizzard, as it is commonly called, is provided with powerful muscles for grinding the hard seeds on which the bird largely subsists. The crop, a sac like enlargement of the cesophagus, is a mere membranous receptacle for first receiving the food, and is without muscles. Its capacity is usually from four to six times that of the stomach. : The bobwhite is insectivorous as well as graminivorous. It is, in fact, one of our most nearly omnivorous species. In addition to seeds, fruit, leaves, buds, tubers, and insects, it has been known to eat spiders, myriapods, crustaceans, mollusks, and even batrachians. The food for the year as a whole, calculated by volume and deter- mined by analysis of the contents of 918 stomachs, consisted of vege- table matter, 83.59 per cent, and animal matter, 16.41 per cent. In addition, there was mineral matter varying in amount from ‘1 to 5 per cent of the gross contents of the stomachs, and in exceptional cases rising to 30 per cent. This usually consisted of sand, with coarser bits of quartz 2 to 7 mm. in diameter, which were taken to pulverize the food and thus render it easier of assimilation. The vegetable part of the food consisted of grain, 17.38 per cent; ‘various seeds, chiefly weeds, 52.83 per cent; fruit, 9.57 per cent, and miscellaneous vegetable matter, 3.81 per cent. The animal matter in the food was distributed as follows: Beetles, 6.92 per cent; grass- hoppers, 3.71 per cent; bugs, 2.77 per cent; caterpillars, 0.95 per cent; miscellaneous insects, 0.70 per cent; and other invertebrates, largely spiders, 1.36 per cent. The insect food of bobwhite, in comparison with that of other birds, is interesting. It includes fewer caterpillars, ants, and other Hymenoptera, but more bugs; and, singularly enough in a terrestrial 28 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES: feeder, nearly twice as large a proportion of beetles as of grass- hoppers. The meadow lark, per contra, another terrestrial feeder, takes 29 per cent of grasshoppers and only 18 per cent of beetles. The food of the bobwhite for the year is noteworthy in several respects. Its character varies with the season. From October to March it consists almost exclusively of vegetable matter—for Febru- ary and March 99.8 per cent of vegetable food appearing in analysis— while in late spring and in summer it is made up largely of insects, August showing 44.1 per cent of insect food. The grain taken, as a rule, is derived neither from newly sown fields nor from standing crops, but is gleaned from stubble fields after harvest. Grain forms a less prominent part of the food than the seeds of weeds, which are the most important element of all and make up one-half of the food for the year. The most distinctive feature of this, as a whole, is the large proportion—15.52 per cent—of leguminous seeds, a food seldom eaten by the various species of sparrows or other terrestrial feeders. A small fraction of this seed comes from cultivated plants, especially the cowpea; the rest is derived from wild plants, most of them classed as weeds. Leguminous seeds appear to be most largely con- sumed during December, when they form 25 per cent of the food. The 15.05 per cent of insect food, although a comparatively small part of the total, is of extreme importance, since it contains many pests that are generally avoided by nongallinaceous birds. Note- worthy among these are the potato beetle, twelve-spotted cucumber beetle, striped cucumber beetle, squash ladybird beetle, various cut- worms, the tobacco worm, army worm, cotton worm, cotton bollworm, the clover weevil, cotton boll weevil, imbricated snout beetle, May beetle, click beetle, the red-legged grasshopper, Rocky Mountain locust, and chinch bug. It should be observed that in the search for these pests and for weed seeds the bobwhite, unlike many birds of the woodland, hedge- row, and orchard, extends its foraging to the center of the largest fields, thus protecting the growing crops. GRAIN AS Foop. Vegetable matter has long been known to be an important element of the food of the bobwhite; indeed, many people suppose that it constitutes the entire food of the bird. The impression that the bob- white eats little else than grain has prevailed even among many sportsmen who have bagged most of their game in the stubble field. The present analysis, however, discloses that grain forms scarcely more than one-sixth of the food. Laboratory study shows that it is eaten in every month of the year, the maximum amount, 46 per cent of the food for the month, having been taken in March. In the FOOD HABITS. 29 specimens examined corn amounts to 11.96 per cent of the total food for the year, while all other kinds of grain collectively amount to only 5.42 per cent. Wheat (4.17 per cent) is next to corn in im- portance. As experiments with captive birds failed to show marked preference for either corn or wheat, the disproportion between the two above noted is probably due to the fact that more corn than wheat is grown in the country where our birds were obtained. The remaining cereal food (1.25 per cent of the total) is miscellaneous grain, including Kafir corn, sorghum, millet, buckwheat, barley,-oats, and rye. ; Grain-eating birds are likely to do much harm to crops. They may pull up sprouting grain, plunder the standing crop when it is in the milk, or forage among the sheaves at harvest time. The bobwhite, however, is a notable exception. The period of germination is the time when grain is liable to serious injury by birds. But not a sin- gle sprouting kernel was found in the crops and stomachs of quails examined. Field observations, during the years 1899 and 1900, at Marshall Hall gave similar evidence. While crows injured sprout- ing corn so seriously during May that several extensive replantings were necessary, bobwhites, unusually abundant in the vicinity at the same time, were never seen to disturb the germinating grain. During November, 1899, sprouting wheat was saved from crow blackbirds only by diligent use of the shotgun; but both then and in other sea- sons the bobwhite was rarely observed in winter-wheat fields and never was seen to molest the crop. Sprouting oats apparently were not molested, though extended observations were not made. No data are available for rye and millet, but in newly sown buckwheat fields in Essex County, N. J., which the writer saw ravaged by doves, there was no sign of injury by the bobwhites. Publications on economic ornithology and reports received by the Biological Survey add tes- timony of like character. It may safely be stated, therefore, that. so far as at present known the bobwhite does no appreciable harm to sprouting grain. In order to learn to what extent the species injures ripening grain, observations were made for several years at Marshall Hall. Unlike the crow and several kinds of blackbirds, the bobwhite did no damage there to corn in the milk, nor did it injure ripening wheat and oats. Flocks of English sparrows, however, might be seen feeding on wheat in the milk, and not uncommonly a score of goldfinches swayed on the panicles of ripening oats. A hen bobwhite shot in a field of ripe wheat, June 18, 1903, had much of the grain in its crop, though whether obtained from standing heads or from fallen kernels did not appear. As the bobwhite usually feeds on the ground, and as it was never seen feeding from the stalk at Marshall Hall, it appears prob- able that it seeks only the fallen grain, At wheat harvest it follows 80 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. the binder, and at Marshall Hall was often seen in the harvest field picking up scattered wheat. It was not observed there on the shocks, appearing to find ay abundance of waste kernels. At corn harvest also bobwhite takes its share from exposed ears; but the bird is not able to shuck corn, as do the crow and the wild goose. Several crops of ripe oats at Marshall Hall were watched during harvest time and furnished no evidence against the bobwhite. No report of injury by it elsewhere at harvest time has come to the Biological Survey, though damage may be done where peculiar local conditions conjoin sith an overabundance of birds. The bobwhite, however, is a persistent stubble feeder. As Mr. Sandys puts it, “He is the gleaner who never reaps, who guards the growing crops, who glories over a bounteous yield, yet is content to watch and wait for those lost grains which fall to him by right.” Where fields of wheat stubble support a rank growth of ragweed the sportsman is most likely to find a feeding covey. At Marshall Hall, during September, October, and November, such fields are the favorite haunts of the birds. On this farm corn has a greater acreage than wheat, but the birds are much less often found in corn stubble; and, as stomach examinations show, they eat much less corn than wheat. Since experiments with captive birds showed no preference for wheat, food other than grain may have kept them on the wheat stubble. Along. the Roanoke in Virginia, where wheat is not grown, bobwhites feed in corn fields. ' On the Western prairies, where cornstalks left standing in the fields afford good cover, the birds are more often found in cornfields. Six birds collected from such fields in November, 1891, at Badger, Nebr., contained 181 whole kernels of corn; the smallest number in a crop was 20 and the largest 48. It is not unusual to find from 100 to 200 grains of wheat in a crop. A bobwhite shot at West Appomattox, Va., in December, 1902, had its crop distended almost to bursting with 508 grains of wheat. This habit of gleaning waste grain after harvest is beneficial to the farm, for volunteer grain is not desirable, especially where certain insect pests or parasitic fungi are to be combated. As the scattered kernels are often too far afield to be gathered by domestic poultry, the serv- ices of the bobwhite in this respect are especially useful. The bobwhite sometimes eats the seeds of certain cultivated legu- minous plants. Both the black-eye and the clay cowpeas (Vignu sinen- sis) have been found in stomachs, and one contained 35 peas of the lat- _ter variety. In Westmoreland and Mecklenburg counties, Va., cowpea patches are favorite resorts for the birds in-November and December. Garden peas were found in crops collected by Mr. Walter Hoxie at Frogmore, 8. C. It rare instances the bobwhite picks up clover FOOD HABITS. 31 seeds, and it has been known to eat a lima bean. It may take also Kafr corn and sorghum, and it has a decided liking for millet (Chutochloa italica), a taste particularly noticeable in birds of Kan- sas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. A crop from Onaga, Kans.. con- tained 1,000 millet seeds. No significant damage to millet has been reported and the birds may secure most of this food from stubble fields. WEED SEEDS AS Foop. Weeds appropriate the space, light, water, and food of the plants that directly or indirectly support man. A million weeds may spring ep on a single acre, and a single plant of one of these species may mature 100,000 seeds in a season. This process. if unchecked. may produce in the spring of the third year 10,000,000.000 weeds. The problem of weed destruction is perennial in every land; indeed, soil culture may be called a never ceasing war against weeds. Of the birds that aid the farmer in this strug- gle the bobwhite, the native sparrows, and the mourning dove are the most |, efficient. They attack weeds at that ¢ vital stage—the seed period—hence & 4 their work, especially against the an- ge nuals which depend on seeds for per- 8 petuation, is of enormous practical Rc value. Fig. 1.—Seed of witeh grass eae The bobwhite is preeminently a capillare). (From Bull. 38, Nevada seed eater, 52.83 per cent of its food A#ricutural Experiment Station.) for the year consisting of seeds. The bulk of these are the seeds of plants belonging to the general category of weeds. Many of them are injurious plants with which the farmer is constantly at strife; others are less noxious and some are seldom, if ever, trouble- some. Sixty-odd species are known to be eaten, and thorough obser- vations would probably raise the number to a hundred or more. The food of no other bird with which the writer is acquainted is so varied. At Marshall Hall and in Mecklenburg and Westmoreland counties. Va., a somewhat detailed study was made of the weed seed eaten by the bird. At Marshall Hall fields of wheat stubble grown up to ragweed were favorite feeding grounds. Among others found there were buttonweed seeds. each like a miniature hérsehoof, com- plete even to the frog; 29 or 30 of these were sometimes contained in a single stomach. A number of birds shot on wheat stubble had eaten largely of bastard pennyroyal seeds, which are rough and resemble blackberry seeds. Goldfinches and other seed eateys also find these palatable. Along ditches the abundant grasses—witch grass (fig. 1) and spreading panicum—provide the birds with shade in summer and 5112—No. 21—05 M 5 34 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. eaten at a meal may suggest the value of the bird as a weed destroyer. As many as 200 to 300 smartweed seeds, 500 seeds of red sorrel, and 700 seeds of: three-seeded mercury have been taken at a meal. Crops and stomachs crammed with nothing but ragweed seeds are often found. A bird shot November 6, 1902, at Marshall Hall, had eaten 1,000 ragweed akenes; another killed there the previous November had eaten as many seeds of crab grass. Birds shot in Mecklenburz County, Va., contained about 2,000 leguminous seeds, mainly tick- trefoil, and various kinds of bush clover. A bird shot in October, 1902, at Pine Brook, N. J., had eaten 5,000 seeds of green foxtail grass, and one killed on Christmas day, 1901, at Kinsale, Va., had taken about 10,000 pigweed seeds. LIST OF WEED SEEDS EATEN. The list of seeds eaten, excluding mast and pine seeds, is as follows: Slender paspalum (Paspalum seta- ceum). Slender finger grass (Syntherisma fili- formis). ‘Crab grass (Syntherisma sanguinalis). Barnyard grass (Hechinochloa crus- gauli). Barbed panicum tun). Switch grass, tall smooth (Panicum virgatum). Spreading panicum (Panicum erm). Witch grass (Panicum capillare). Yellow foxtail (Chetochloa glanea). Green foxtail (Chetochloa viridis). Timothy (Phleum pratense). Sheathed rush grass (Sporobolus vagi- neflorus). Slender spike grass (Uniola lara). Wild rice (Zizania aquatica). Nut grass (Cyperus rotundus). Rush (Seirpus?). Sedge (Carer sp.). Tussock sedge (Carer stricta). Skunk cabbage (Spathyema fetida). Red sorrel (Rumer acetosella). Curled dock (Rumer crispus), (Panicum barbula- panicum prolif- Pale persicaria (Persicaria lopathi- folia). Pennsylvania persicaria (Persicaria pennsylranica). Smartweed (Persicaria hydropiper). Knotweed (Polygonim aviculare). Black bindweed (Polygonum convolvu- lus). Climbing false buckwheat (Tiniaria scandens). T.amb’s - quarters bum). Rough pigweed flexus). Carpet weed (Mollugo verticillata). Corn cockle (Agrostemma githago). Chickweed (Alsine media). Charlock (Raphanus raphanistrum). Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Acacia (Acacia sp.). Redbud (Cercis canadensis). Sensitive pea (Chamecrista nictitans). Partridge pea (Chamecrista fascicu- laris), Cassia (Cassia sp.). Lupine (Lupinus sp.). Clover (Trifolium sp.). Trefoil (Lotus sp.). Psoralea (Psoralea sp.). Locust (Robinia pseudacacia). Florida coffee (Sesban macrocarpa). Tick-trefoil (Meibomia nudiflora and M. grandiflora). Hairy bush clover (Lespedeza hirta). Creeping bush clover (Lespedeza re- pens), Bush clover (Lespedeza violacea). Japan clover (Lespedeza striata). Vetch (Vicia sp.). Hog peanut (Falcata comosa). (Chenopodium al- (Amaranthus retro- FOOD HABITS. Downy milkpea (Galactia volubilis). Prairie rhynehosia (Dolicholus latifo- lius), Trailing wild bean (Ntrophostyles hel- reola). Pink wild bean (Strophostyles umbel- lata). Crane’s bill (Geraniion carolinianum). Yellow sorrel (O.ralis stricta). Croton (Croton sp.). Texas croton (Croton te.rensis). Three-seeded mercury (Acalypha gla- CONS). Spotted spurge (Euphorbia maculata). Flowering spurge (Euphorbia corol- lata). Red maple (Acer rubrum). Box elder (Rulac negundo). Jewel weed (Jinpatiens sp.). Sida (Nida spinosa). Violet (Viola sp.). Ash (Fraxrinus sp.). Morning glory (Ipom«ra sp.). 35 Bindweed (Convolvulus sp.). Corn gromwell (Lithospermum — ar- reHnse). Hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canes- cens), Gromwell (Lithospermuin officinale). Vervain (Verbena stricta). Bastard —pennyroyal (Trichostema dichotomum), Ribgrass (Plantago lanceolata). Button weed (Diodia teres). Trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans). Orange hawkweed (Hicracium auran- tiacum). Marsh elder (Iva ciliata). Giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida). Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisirfolia). Everlasting (Antennaria sp.). Sunflower (Helianthus sp.). Common sunflower (Helianthus an- NUUS). Crownbeard (Verbesina sp.). Beggar ticks (Bidens sp.). Mast AND PINE SEEDS AS Foon. Mast, including acorns of the swamp oak (Quercus palustris), the white oak (Q. alba), beechnuts. the blue beech (Carpinus carolini- ana), and the chestnut, amounts to 2.47 per cent of the food of the year. In the pine lands of Florida the bobwhite freely eats the seeds of the long-leaf pine (Pinus palustris). Of the 39 birds from Walton County (November, December, and January, 1902 and 1903), 21 had their crops and stomachs mainly filled with this nutritious food. They had usually clipped off the wings of the samaras close to the large seeds. Several crops were full of germinating pine seeds, some of the embryos having cotyledons 2 inches long. In the region about Washington the seeds of the scrub pine (Pinus virginiana) also are eaten to a small extent. The fact that these seeds are a good winter food should be remembered by holders of game preserves. Observa- tions show that the key seeds of the maple also are eaten, though much less extensively. Fruit as Foop. Unlike the catbird and the cedarbird, whose food consists, respec- tively, of 50 and 87 per cent of fruit, the food of bobwhite for the year includes only 9.57 per cent of fruit. It is least frugivorous in spring and most so in June and in December and January, taking 20.1 per cent in the summer month and a little over 18 per cent during the two winter months. If more birds collected in June had been 36 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. available for examination, probably the percentage of fruit would have been lower. The December percentage is evidently character- istic, for it was based on the examination of about 200 stomachs. In early spring wild winter-cured berries, in May strawberries, later the Rubus fruits—thimbleberry, dewberry, and highbush black- berry—and in late summer and autumn an endless profusion of the year’s wild harvest yield the bobwhite an accessible and abundant food supply. In late fall and winter, when snow covers the seeds, fruit doubtless keeps it from starving. In December it forms nearly one-fifth of the food for the month. Sumac, wax-myrtle, rose, and bayberry are the main winter supply. Poison-ivy berries are eaten occasionally. Rose hips often project from the snow and furnish timely food. At Falls Church, Va., and at Cabin John Bridge and Marshall Hall, Md., tracks of coveys in deep snow led up to rose shoots to which partly eaten hips were clinging. Sumac and other plants of the genus Rhus form 1.60 per cent of the annual food, and during December the proportion of Riis alone is 10.50 per cent. Of 12 birds shot during December at Porters Landing, S. Dak., near the bobwhite’s northern limit, by W. C. Colt, each had eaten from 100 to 300 of the carmine sumac berries, and altogether the sumac had ‘furnished 90 per cent of the food they contained. Bayberry and wax-myrtle are as important along the coast as sumacs are inland. Berries of wax-myrtle were found in the stomachs of 15 out of 39 birds collected during November, December, and January, 1902 and 1903, in Walton County, Fla. One hundred and twenty bayberries had been eaten by one bird taken in July, 1901, at Shelter Island, N. Y. Both these fruits last through the winter and well into May, affording excellent provision just when it is most needed. In spite of its frugivorous tastes and constant association with orchard crops, the bobwhite is not often known to injure cultivated fruits. M. B. Waite reports that near Odenton, Md., it sometimes picks ripening strawberries. Yet birds that were kept in captivity several months refused strawberries when they were hungry. Cul- tivated cherries were found in a few stomachs, but the bobwhite is not an arboreal feeder and does not damage this crop. During June at Marshall Hall it was repeatedly observed feeding greedily upon the fruit of running dewberry vines. It probably does no serious harm, however, to cultivated bush varieties of Rubus, such as the thimbleberry, the raspberry, and the blackberry. It is fond of wild grapes, and a number of crops each contained as many as 25 frost grapes (Vitis cordifolia). Wlence it might be expected to injure cultivated varieties, for its relative, the California quail, sometimes plunders vineyards; but, so far as the writer knows, vineyards in the East have sustained no appreciable damage from the bobwhite. In summing up the frugivorous habits of the bobwhite, it may be FOOD HABITS. 87 said that the present investigation shows no appreciable injury to cultivated fruit, but a marked liking for wild fruit. It may be interesting to note, also, that the bobwhite is not nearly so frugiv- orous as the ruffed grouse. LIST OF FRUITS EATEN. Although the percentage of wild fruits yearly consumed is compar- atively small, the variety is great, as shown by the appended list, which ineludes only those actually ascertained to have been eaten. A few careful observers could easily double the number. Cabbage palmetto (Inodes palmetto). Smooth scarlet sumac (Rhus glabra). Saw palmetto (Serenoa serrulata). Holly (/lexr opaca). Solomon’s seal (Polygonatuim). Black alder (Ilex verticillata). Greenbrier (Smilax sp.). Climbing bittersweet (Celastrus scan- Wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera). dens). Bayberry (Myrica carolinensis), Frost grape (Vitis cordifolia). Mulberry (Morus rubra). Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida). Sassafras (Sassafras sassafras). Sour gum (Vyssa sylratica). Thimbleberry (Rubus occidentalis). Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). High bush blackberry (Rubus nigro- Wuckleberry (Gaylussacia sp.). baccus). Blueberry (Vaccinium sp.). Dewberry (Rubus procumbens). Ground-cherry (Physalis pubescens). Strawberry (Fragaria sp.). Nightshade (Solanum nigrum). Rose (Rosa). Elder (Sambucus canadensis). Haw (Cratequs sp.). Black haw (Viburnum prunifolium). - Apple (Jfalus malus). Honeysuckle (Lonicera sp.). Cultivated cherry (Prunus sp.). Partridge berry (IM/itchella repens). Wild cherry (Prunus serotina). Sarsaparilla (Aralia). Poison ivy (Rhus radicans). Woodbine (Parthenocissus quinquefo- Dwarf sumac (Rhus copallina). lia). Staghorn sumac (hus hirta). LEAVES AND Bups as Foop. The bobwhite does not approach the ruffed grouse in destructive- ness to leaves, buds, and tender shoots, though occasionally it samples them. It eats the leaves of sorrel sometimes, both yellow sorrel (Oxalis stricta) and red sorrel (Rumexr acetosella). It has been known to take the leaves of cinquefoil (Potentilla), and is extremely fond of both red and white clover. Captive birds ate grass, lettuce, and chickweed. INSECTS AS Foon. Notwithstanding statements to the contrary, published and unpub- lished, the bobwhite eats insects in every month of the year. They form 15.05 per cent of its entire food for the year. From June to August, inclusive, when insects are most numerous, their proportion in the food is 35.97 per cent. The variety of insect food is large. 38 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. In the present investigation 116 species have been noted, and further study will doubtless greatly increase the number. Moreover, the large proportion of injurious insects habitually eaten renders the services of this bird more valuable than those of many birds whose percentage of insect food, though greater, includes a smaller propor- tion of injurious species. Conspicuous among the pests destroyed are the Colorado potato beetle, twelve-spotted cucumber beetle, bean leaf-beetle, squash ladybird, wireworms and their beetle, and May beetles. Its food also includes such weevils as corn billbugs, imbri- cated snout beetle, clover leaf weevil, cotton boll weevil; also the striped garden caterpillar, army worm, cotton bollworm, and various species of cutworms; also the corn-louse ants, red-legged grasshopper, Rocky Mountain locust, and chinch bug. The bobwhite does not merely sample these species, as do many other birds; it eats some of them in considerable numbers, for crops examined have contained, respectively, a dozen cutworms, an equal number of army worms, 30 Rocky Mountain locusts, and 47 cotton boll weevils. This bird also destroys striped cucumber beetles by the score, potato beetles by the hundred, and chinch bugs in great numbers. From June to August, inclusive, insects and their allies form, as previously men- tioned, about a third of the food: Of this beetles make up nearly half, or 15.37 per cent; bugs, 8.54 per cent; caterpillars, 1.37 per cent; grasshoppers, 6.93 per cent; miscellaneous insects, 1.33 per cent, and spiders, with other invertebrates, 2.43 per cent. BEETLES EATEN. The beetles most largely destroyed are ground beetles, leaf-eating beetles, and weevils. Naturally, because of the terrestrial habits of the bobwhite, ground beetles, in spite of their vile odor and irritating secretions, are picked up oftener than the other kinds. Experiments with caged birds prove that even the most pungent forms are relished. Ground beetles are numerous in species and superabundant in indi- viduals. One can form no adequate idea of their numbers except at night. Are lights kill them by thousands. The writer has known one species (arpalus pennsylvanicus) to enter open windows in the evening in swarms. They have an irritating secretion, which if applied to the skin soon raises a blister. Ground beetles are more or less predaceous, hence the whole family was formerly considered beneficial. Later study has resulted in their division into three classes: The most carnivorous species, possessing sharp, curved jaws for capturing and killing other insects; the least predaceous forms, having blunt jaws and eating considerable vegetable matter; and a class intermediate between these two. The first class contains highly beneficial beetles which destroy great numbers of insect pests, while the blunt-jawed class includes some injurious species that feed on FOOD HABITS. 89 crops. Only a few of the bobwhite stomachs examined contained the useful sharp-jawed beetles, but many contained the blunt-jawed species, especially such forms as Amara sp., Lgonoderus pullipes, -Lnisodactylus baltimorensis, Anisodactylus rusticus, Larpalus penn- sylvanicus, and Harpalus caliginosus: At Marshall Hall, in August; 1902, a covey of bobwhites was seen greedily eating beetles of the two species of Hurpulus named above, which were numerous ine wheat stubble overgrown by fagweed. The meadow lark, also, was feeding on them. The liking of the bobwhite for Zarpalus pennsylvanicus was further proved by experiments with caged birds. It eats also the larve of these beetles, as do the robin and several other birds. Though the genus Harpalus as a whole is useful, destruction of these two species is not amiss, for they injure ripening strawberries by eating out the seeds. Through their depredations on a quarter-acre patch a grower at Leesburg, Va., in three nights lost $350 worth of fruit. The nature of the injury by the beetle has so far made reme- dial measures impracticable; therefore, the work of the bobwhite and other birds should be estimated at its full value. Leaf-eating beetles, next in importance after ground beetles in the diet of the bobwhite, include many of the worst beetle pests, and members of the family not already actively injurious are potentially so. These beetles also are provided with protective secretions, more effectively repellant in the larger species, at least, than those of ground beetles, but luckily ineffectual against bobwhite. He eats the most injurious of these insects, such as the potato beetle (Leptz- notarsa decemlineata), the striped cucumber beetle (Diabrotica vit- tata), the twelve-spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica 12-punctata), and the squash ladybird (E'pilachnu borealis). The first nained is perhaps more correctly termed the Colorado potato beetle. It was a native of the Rocky Mountains originally, feeding on the horse- nettle (Solunum rostratum), a plant related to the potato. It began to migrate eastward a year or two before the civil war. and fifteen or sixteen years later reached the Atlantic coast. Since then, as every one knows, this beetle has threatened the potato crop of the country. Birds as a rule avoid it because of its secretions. There- fore the bobwhite’s services in destroying it should be highly valued, the more so because the bird’s habit of eating the potato bug is not. merely occasional nor limited to special localities. Records have come to the Biological Survey from New Jersey, Virginia, Mary- land, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and Ontario; and it is believed that more extended observations will show that the habit is general wherever the birds and the beetles inhabit the same district. During the last week of June, at Marshall Hall, a pair of birds was observed patroling rows of badly infested potato vines and diligently picking off the beetles. Writing of the bird’s relation to this insect, C. E. Re 40 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. Romaine, of Crockett, Tex., says: “ Quail have built their nests around my fence and even in my garden, within 50 feet of my house. They have kept my potato patch entirely free from the Colorado potato bug.” Three captive bobwhites dispatched 50 potato beetles in five minutes, swallowing them whole, apparently with great zest. No food offered them was eaten with more avidity. Thomas MclIl- wraith says a recent writer mentions that he examined the crop of one which was killed as it rose from a potato patch and found that it contained 75 potato bugs.* Lawrence Bruner reports 101 of these beetles found in a single crop.” Such wholesale destruction of these pests throughout a large territory is an invaluable aid to agriculture. The two species of cucumber beetles (Diabrotica vittata and D. 12-punctata) are highly injurious to cucumbers, squashes, melons, and corn, much of the harm being caused by their larve, which feed on the roots of infested crops and are difficult to combat successfully with insecticides. The bobwhite eats them freely without ill effect, though examination seldom reveals them in the stomachs of other birds. Indeed, captive birds of all the other species experimented with have refused them, probably because of their offensive secre- tions. To some extent the bobwhite feeds also on certain leaf beetles, known, from their jumping powers, as flea beetles. Its favorites appear to be the three-lined potato beetle (Lema trilineata), some- times an ally of the potato beetle in the potato patch, @dionychus fimbriata, and several members of the genus Disonycha. The golden tortoise beetle (Coptocycla bicolor), an insect that looks like a drop of molten gold and is an enemy of the sweet potato, is also eaten. The locust leaf-mining beetle (Odontota dorsalis) is another victim of the bird. Its larve tunnel between the surfaces of locust leaves and kill the foliage. In 1895 the ravages of this pest turned the locust-fringed bluffs on the Potomac below Washington as brown as if touched by fire. The agriculturist finds weevils hard to cope with, on account of their small size, protective coloration, and retiring mode of life. Birds, however, destroy them in large numbers, often a score or two at a meal, and bobwhite does his share of the work. He often eats two common species that feed on clover leaves (Sitones hispidulus and Phytonomus punctatus), and preys also on the two billbugs (Sphenophorus parvulus and Sphenophorus zee), the latter injurious to corn. He relishes also that notorious garden pest, the imbricated snout beetle. His most important weevil prey is the Mexican cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis). In 1894 this insect first crossed the Mexican border into Texas. During 1903 it caused a loss of 2 Birds of Ontario, p. 170, 1894. > Notes on Nebraska Birds, p. 80, 1896. FOOD HABITS. 41 $15,000,000. Though still chiefly confined to Texas, in time it will undoubtedly occupy the whole cotton belt and do a tremendous amount of harm. The bobwhite is fond of this pest. F. M. Howard, of Beeville, Tex., in writing to the Bureau of Entomology, says that the crops of bobwhites shot at Beeville, Tex., were filled with these weevils... H. G. Wood, of Cuero, Tex., in a letter dated September 21, 1901, relating to the weevil scourge, says: Several of our business men and farmers are of the opinion that the quail can be made a vehicle for the destruction of the cotton boll weevil. One farmer reports his cotton fields full of quail, and the entire absence of weevils. He found 47 weevils in the craw of one bird. * * * TI claim quail are the greatest insect destroyers of all birds. * * * We propose to prohibit the killing of quail in this county this season, hoping thereby to save a great por- tion of the cotton crop next season. The click beetles, the larvee of which are the wireworms so inim- ical to corn and other plants of the grass family; scarabeid beetles, though in smaller numbers; dung beetles, when numerous, and May beetles, parents of the injurious white grub, are eaten by the bobwhite. The May beetle (Lachnosterna sp.) and itsnear relative, Ligyrus gib- bosus, were eagerly eaten by captive birds. The useful ladybirds (Coccinellidw) are sometimes found in the bird’s crop, but, judging from experiments with caged birds, do not appear to be highly rel- ished. Adalia bipunctuta was several times offered and refused, but. was finally eaten. The one harmful beetle of the family, the squash ladybird (Epilachna borealis), has been found in stomachs and was relished by captive birds. Certain miscellaneous beetles belonging to different families are occasionally picked up, such as rove beetles, soldier beetles, darkling beetles, histerid beetles, and longicorn beetles. LIST OF BEETLES EATEN. The beetles known to be eaten by the bobwhite include the fol- lowing: GrounpD BEETLES (Carabide) : LEAF BEETLES—Continued. Scarites subterraneus. Nodonota tristis. Amara sp. Leptinotarsa decemlineata (potato Casnonia pennsylvanica, beetle). Platynus extensicollis. Chrysomela pulchra. Agonoderus pallipes. Chrysomela suturalis. Harpalus pennsylvanicus. Cerotoma trifurcata (bean leaf- Harpalus calignosus, beetle). Anisodactylus rusticus. Diabrotica vittata (striped cucum- Anisodactylus baltimorensis. ber beetle). Lear Beetles (Chrysomelide) : Diabrotica 12-punetata (twelve-spot- Lema trilineata. ted cucumber beetle). Cryptocephalus venustus. Gdionychis fimbriata. Colaspis brunnea. Disonycha 5-vittata. «Circular 27, new series, Division of Entomology, p. 6, 1897. 49 Lear Beertes—Continued. Disonycha ranthomeleua, Disonych a crenicollis, Psylliodes punctulata: Microrhopata vittata: fos, od Odontota dorsalis Cocust léaf-min- ing beetle). Coptocycla bicolor (golden tortoise béetle): May BEetites (Scarabseide) : Onthophagus pennsylvanieus (dung beetle). Aphodius inguinatus (dung beetlé). Serica sp. Diplotaxis sp. (leaf-chafer). Lachnosterna tristis (May beetle). Anomala sp. Aphonus sp. Snovur BEETLES (suborder Rhynchoph- ora): Thecesternus humeralis. Epicerus imnbricatus (imbricated snout beetle). Tanymecus confertus. Aramigus fulleri (Fuller’s rose beetle). Sitones hispidulus (clover weevil). Phytonomus punctatus (clover-leaf weevil). BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. Snout Brettes—Continued. Anthonomus grandis (Mexican cot- ton boll weevil). Chaleodermus collaris: Centrinus sp. af Sphenophorus parbilus (pillbug). Sphenophorus zew (corn billbug). Crick BEETLES (Blaterids): Drasterius elegans: Agriotés sp: Melanotus communis: Corymbites sp. Lapysirps (Coccinellidee) : Hippodamia parenthesis. Coccinella sanguinea. Adalia bipunctata. Epilachna borealis bird). HIsTeRID BEETLES (Histeride). DARKLING BreTLes (Tenebrionide) : Blapstinus. Rove BeEetites (Staphylinide). SoLprer BEETLES (Lampyride) : Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus. Loncicorn BEETLES (Cerambycide) : Tetraopes tetraophthalmus. (squash lady- Gs BUGS EATEN. The bobwhite eats comparatively more bugs than most birds, in- cluding both Heteroptera, or true bugs, and Homoptera, which form 2.77 per cent of its food. The maximum number of bugs was taken in August and amounted to 21.1 per cent of the food for that month. The chinch bug, which in this country has destroyed over $100,000,- 000 worth of wheat and other cereals in a season, is preyed upon by the bobwhite throughout the year. C. V. Riley says: “ In the winter time, when hard pushed for food, this bird must devour immense numbers of the little pests, which winter in just such situations as are frequented by the quail; and this bird should be protected from the gun of the sportsman in every State where the chinch bug is known to run riot.”* The data possessed by the Biological Survey concern- ing this species are scanty, but they show that the quail destroys the pest in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. The number of chinch bugs eaten varies, but usually appears to be large. Thus a bird shot October 12, 1901, at Badger, Nebr., by W. C. Colt, had picked up 100, and the American Field for February « Missouri Reports, II, p. 28, 1870. FOOD HABITS. 43 21, 1903, reports that an observer at Seymour, Ind., found a teaspoon- ful in a crop. In a letter to the Department of Agriculture, M. A. Page, of Garnett, Kans., says of a bobwhite: * On opening the crop we found about two tablespoonfuls of chinch bugs.” The bobwhite also destroys the false chinch bug (ysis angusta- tux), which attacks grapes, strawberries, apples, potatoes, turnips, radishes, beets, and cabbages. It eats the tarnished plant bug (Lygus pratensis), injurious to fruit and truck crops, and stink bugs of more than a dozen species, one (Luschistus variolarius) being a pest on many garden vegetables. The noninjurious species, particularly Thyanta custator, are often eaten, one bird containing 30 of them. More Homoptera (leaf hoppers and other forms) are eaten by bob- white than by most other birds. The little leaf hopper (Oncometopia lateralis) is especially relished. LIST OF BUGS EATEN. HIETEROPTERA : HeETEROPTERA—Continued. Blissus leucopterus (chinch bug). Cenus delius. Vysius angustatus (false chinch Peribalus limbolarius. bug). Lygus pratensis (tarnished plant Buschistus tristigmus (three-spotted bug). soldier bug}. Buschistus variolarius. Huschistus sp. Podisus sp. Brochymena sp. Nezara hilaris. Mormidcea lugens. Hymenarcys nervosa. Aymenarcys irqualis, Thyanta custator. Gobalus pugnazr. Trichopepla semivittata. Corimelena sp. Apiomerus crassipes. Alydus eurinus. Corizus sp. ELuthoctha galeator. Scutellcridw (shield-backed bugs). HOMOPTERA : Oncometopia lateralis. Oncometopia sp. Deltocephalus sp. Diedrocephala sp. GRASSHOPPERS AND ALLIED INSECTS EATEN. Grasshoppers with a few crickets make 3.71 per cent of the yearly food. In September they contribute 11.9 per cent. The walking stick, singularly like a twig and at times very numerous and injuri- ous to foliage of shade and forest trees, has been found in the stomach of the bobwhite. Locusts and meadow grasshoppers, both highly destructive to vegetation, are favorite articles of dict. The bird grasshopper, so called from its size, is occasionally eaten. The de- structive grasshoppers or locusts of the genus JJeinoplus, such as M. atlanis, M. femur-rubrum, or the red-legged grasshopper, and the Rocky Mountain locust, form the bulk of the orthopterous food of the species. The Rocky Mountain locust is one of the worst of insect pests, and its appearance in large numbers is a calainity. TH appears in swarms, clouding the sun and covering the earth, sweeping every 44 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. green thing before it, and often driving the farmer from home and threatening him with starvation. During a single season it has caused a loss of $100,000,000. In 1874-75 Samuel Aughey made a special study of a Nebraska invasion and found that the bobwhites were an active enemy of the locusts. Of 21 birds shot between May and October, inclusive, all but five had fed on locusts. The smallest number taken by any bird was 20 and the largest 39; in all, 539—an average of 25 apiece. C.V. - Riley ascertained that the bird feeds also on the eggs of the locust, particularly in winter, when they are exposed by the freezing and thawing of the ground. If every covey destroyed as many locusts in a day as the one just referred to, it is hard to overestimate the usefulness of the bobwhite where abundant in infested regions. The following are a few of the many species of orthopterous insects identified from the crops and stomachs of bobwhites: Cricket (Gryllus sp.). Red-legged grasshopper (Melanoplus Meadow grasshoppers (Xiphidium, Or- femur-rubrum). chelinum, Scudderia). Grasshopper (Melanoplus bivittatus, Katydid (Microcentrum sp.). M. scudderi, M. atlanis). Walking sticks (Phasmida). Bird grasshopper (Schistocerca ameri- Grouse locust (Tettixr sp.). cana). ‘ Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus). | CATERPILLARS EATEN. The bobwhite seems to eat fewer caterpillars than would be ex- pected from its terrestrial habits. The yearly proportion only formed 0.95 per cent and the maximum quantity eaten in a month was 4 per cent in May. This apparent neglect of caterpillars as food is perhaps due to their scarcity where the birds for the present study were shot.“ Pupe and adult moths occasionally serve as food. Whatever the list of species of caterpillars eaten by bobwhite lacks in length it makes up in importance, for so great a proportion of serious lepidopterous pests is seldom found in the fare of any bird. As is true of some other birds, the bobwhite includes the army worm in its bill of fare. This pest sometimes exists in legions and moves steadily forward from field to field, devouring corn, oats, forage, and other crops. Fortunately it is not often active, and the years of its occurrence are frequently separated by long intervals. Every year, . however, the different species of cutworms do serious damage. They cut down germinating grain, often before the plants have fairly sprung above ground. Owing to their mode of feeding, a few worms may lop off many plants in a night. It seems strange that the bob- whites find as many of these nocturnal larve as they do. The cotton worm, a pest so destructive that in one year it has caused a loss of $30,000,000 to the cotton fields, is preyed upon by the bobwhite. To- bacco worms were sparingly eaten by bobwhites at Marshall Hall, FOOD HABITS. 45 but experiments indicated that they may eat them in greater numbers when opportunity offers. Five tobacco worms (Phlegethontius seata), two-thirds grown, placed in a cage with three captive bob- whites, July 8, 1908, were devoured in less than two minutes. Cab- bage worms (Pontia rapw) and cutworms also were offered and greedily eaten. LIST OF CATERPILLARS EATEN. Army worm (Heliophila unipuncta). Yellow bear caterpillar (Diacrisia vir- Cutworm (Agrotis sp.). ginica). Cutworm (Feltia annera). Pyralid (Tholeria reversalis). Noctuid moth (Noctuida). Purslane sphinx (Deilephila gallii). Cotton worm (Alabama argillacea). Southern tobacco worm (Phlegethon- Cotton bollworm (Heliothis obsoleta). tius serta). Striped garden caterpillar (Janestra Caterpillar (Junonia cenia). legitima). Pupa (Vanessa sp.). MISCELLANEOUS ANIMAL Foop. Insects of several orders not previously mentioned make up 0.70 per cent of the food of the bobwhite. They include hymenopterous insects, such as ants (Las/us sp., Tetramorium cspitum, Camponotus pennsylvanicus) 3 gall flies (Cynipide), which produce bladderlike growths on plants; in rare instances parasitic wasps (Ziphia inor- nata and Proctotrypes ruff pes) ; crane flies, May flies, and sometimes true flies, like the green fly (Luciliu cewsur) and the robber fly (Asilidw). The animal food of the bird includes other orders besides insects. The greater part of this is spiders, chiefly ground spiders, with a few harvest spiders (Phalangidw). The common thousand leg (/ilus sp.) sometimes contributes to the food, as it often does to that of many species of song birds. Snails are more often taken. Among these Pi pu armifera and the pond snail (Suc- cinea avara) have been identified. The little fresh-water lobster called crayfish (Cambarus) had furnished the major course for 4 out of 15 birds shot by collectors for 5S. A. Forbes in Illinois. Manipulation of these biting crustaceans would appear to be difficult for a bird no larger than bobwhite. The queerest food eaten is the toad. B. H. Warren reported Florida birds as feeding on small batrachians (probably young toads), and laboratory examination of ¥lorida birds showed in one case a tiny toad. It is fortunate that this habit of bobwhite is not general, since the toad is useful and destroys great numbers of insects. Foop oF THE YOUNG. During the breeding season a third of the food of adult bobwhites consists of insects. while their young, like those of practically all other land birds, consume a much greater proportion of insect food than 46 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. do their parents. At Marshall Hall, July 24, 19 droppings collected from two broods of downy chicks—one but a few hours out of the shell and the other probably several days old—consisted wholly of the remains of insects. Their fragmentary condition made the spe- cies almost unrecognizable, but the following were identified : Minute green leaf-eating beetles Weevils (Rhynchophora). (Chrysomclida), at least two spe- Grasshopper (Acridida). cies. Caterpillars (Lepidoptera). Leaf-eating beetle (Colaspis brunnea). Ants (Formicidae). Small scarabseid beetles (Scarabeide), Stink bug (Huschistus?). ‘two species. Spiders (Arachnida). Longicorn beetle (Cerambycidw), one Thousand legs (Jilus sp.). species. Ground beetles (Carabidae), five spe- cies. MASKED BOBWHITE. (Colinus ridgwayi.) The masked bobwhite is slightly smaller than the bobwhite of the Eastern States, and the male differs strikingly, having the chin, throat, and sides of the head black, and the underside of the body usually uniform rusty reddish. Since the discovery of the bird little has been added to our knowledge of its life history beyond some notes on its distribution, and the fact of its probable extinction within our borders. It lived on grassy plains covering a limited area in southern Arizona, south and southwest of Tucson, and ranged into northern Sonora, Mexico. In regard to the causes leading to the disappearance of the masked bobwhite, Herbert Brown writes as follows: The causes leading to the extermination of the Arizona masked bobwhite (Colinus ridgwayi) are due to the overstocking of the country with cattle, supplemented by several rainless years. This combination practically stripped tbe country bare of vegetation. Of their range the Colinws occupied only certain restricted portions, and when their food and shelter had been trodden out of existence by thousands of hunger-dying stock, there was nothing left for poor little bobwhite to do but go out with them. As the conditions in Sonora were similar to those in Arizona, birds and cattle suffered in common. The Arizona bobwhite would have thriven well in an agricultural country, in brushy fence corners, tangled thickets, and weed-covered fields, but such things were not to be had in their habitat. Unless a few can still be found on the Upper Santa Cruz we can, in truth, bid them a final good-by.@ Recent information received by the Biological Survey from Sonora is to the effect that these interesting birds still survive in parts of that region, and efforts are being made by a game association to obtain living birds from there to introduce into California. The natural home of the masked bobwhite, in the hot and arid desert of southern 2 Auk., XXI, p, 218, April, 1904, MASKED BOBWHITE—CALIFORNIA QUAIL. 47 Arizona and northern Sonora, is sufficient guaranty that the birds would thrive in cultivated sections anywhere in southern California and the arid Southwest. It would be deplorable if so handsome and useful a bird should be allowed to become extinct, and a determined. effort should be made to introduce it into suitable localities before it is too late. Beyond what Herbert Brown has stated we have practically noth- ing on this bird's habits. He has told us that, like all the birds of the genus Colinus, the males give the well-known ‘ bobwhite ’ call, and he translates their rallying note as ‘hoo-we.’ He examined the stom- achs of three birds. The first contained mustard sced, chaparral ber- ries, six or eight beetles, and other insects; the second only a single grasshopper an inch long, and the third contained 20 ants, several crescent-shaped seeds, and a large number of small, fleshy green leaves. It is stated by Bendire that in Sonora Benson found these birds only in fields where wheat and barley had been grown. Probably then the bird’s general habits may be safely assumed to be similar to those of its relative, bobwhite. CALIFORNIA QUAIL. (Lophortye californicus.) 4 The California quail is generally dispersed over California below an altitude of 8,000 feet and extends into southern Oregon and west- ern Nevada. It has been introduced into Washington and British Columbia, and efforts to introduce it into the Hawaiian Islands also have proved very successful, although of late years its numbers there have been much reduced by the mongoose, by which in time it is likely to be exterminated. Two geographic forms of the bird are recognized, a dark form and a light one, but as they do not differ in habits they are not distinguished in the following account. It is a beautiful bird with a most pleasing combination of colors and mark- ings, its head being adorned by a glossy black crest, narrow at the base and gradually widening into gracefully recurving plumes, and the markings on the underparts resembling scales. It frequents brush-covered hillsides, canyons, thickets along water courses and the borders of roads, as well as vineyards and other cultivated fields. The nesting time of the species varies considerably according to locality and conditions. According to E. A. Mearns it nests in March and April in Ventura County, Cal. Nests containing eggs were found a This name is used here to cover both the typical California quail (Lophortyxr californicus) and the paler, more southerly form, called the valley quail (ZL. ec. vallicola). 48 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. during the last week of May in Tulare County, Cal., by J. E. McLel- lan. The eggs usually number 12 to 15, and are white or buff with spots. These birds take kindly to civilization, and flocks are not rarely seen in the suburbs of large towns, where they range through the gardens and orchards. They often nest close to farm buildings, and W. Otto Emerson states that a pair nested within a rod of his front door, though nearly every hour people and vehicles were passing within four feet of the nest. Instead of spending the night in a circle on the ground, like the bobwhite, the California quail chooses much safer places and roosts in bushes or low thickly foliaged trees. This quail is even more con- fiding than the bobwhite, and frequently comes about farm buildings to eat with the chickens. It has been known to lay in confinement, and appears to yield readily to semidomestication. The valley quail has acquired the interesting habit of posting sen- tinels when feeding, which is described in detail by John J. Williams. Mr. Williams observed a flock enter a field and begin to feed, while a sentinel took his station in a peach tree and scanned the country round about for danger. Presently he was relieved by a second bird, who took up a position on a brush pile and a little later was relieved by a third, who kept guard while the other two fed with the flock.* Writing in 1891 Clark P. Streator says that about 100,000 are sold each year in the San Francisco market. It is not a perfect game bird, for it does not lie well to a dog, and when once flushed has a habit of running that is exasperating to the sportsman. The best way to hunt these quail is to keep the dog at heel and to run down the birds. This is likely to make them take wing and to break up the covey. The same result may be accomplished also by discharging the gun in the air. When a covey has been scattered in suitable cover they will lie well enough to a trained dog to give the hunter considerable sport, ° though it is poor in comparison with that afforded by the bobwhite. The beauty of this quail, its pleasant call notes, and its confidence in man make it a favorite, except where it damages the grape crop. In fall and winter where it is abundant hundreds of birds unite in great packs. Bendire, writing in 1892, says that within a decade packs of 500 were often found, but that at that time coveys even of 50 were rare in most places.? In the fall of 1891 they were still very abun- dant on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, where E. W. Nelson, of the Biological Survey, records their slaughter by pot hunters. The hunters stationed themselves behind a brush blind near the one spring where the birds came to drink. Thousands of them flocked ¢ Condor, vol. 5, pp. 146-148, 1903. Life Hist. N. Am. Birds [I], p. 24, 1892, CALIFORNIA QUAIL. 49 thither for water during the day, and by waiting until many birds were bunched the hunters killed at least a score at each discharge of the gun. In a week of this butchery 8,400 quails were killed. A record of 525 birds to four guns in a day in February, 1903, near San Diego, Cal., shows that birds are still abundant there, though far less numerous in most places than formerly.* The California quail, though not a large consumer of insects, is a useful bird, since weed seeds constitute more than half of its food. In some regions these birds suffer from the curtailment of their food supply by droughts, and in the northern part of their range many are killed by severe winters. Bendire states that during the exces- sively cold winter of 1887-88, when the mercury dropped to 28° below zero in the northeastern corner of California, these quail per- ished in great numbers.” The California quail might be introduced successfully in many sec- tions between California and Texas where it does not occur at present. It already has been introduced into Colorado, where it will be pro- tected by law at all seasons until 1920. Laws to prevent trapping and to limit the day’s bag, together with absolute protection in sec- tions where necessary, should suffice to preserve this beautiful species. FOOD HABITS. The general food habits of this quail have been ascertained by the examination of 601 stomachs, and it proves to be one of the most largely vegetarian of game birds. The material for investigation was collected in California, and represents every month of the year except May. Insects furnished but 2.15 per cent of the food, and leaves, seeds, and fruit 97.85 per cent. INSECT AND OTHER ANIMAL Toop. The 2.15 per cent of animal food eaten by this quail is distributed as follows: Spiders, 0.03 per cent; beetles, 0.22. per cent; grasshoppers and crickets, 0.24 per cent; ants and other Hymenoptera, 0.67 per cent; miscellaneous insects, 0.99 per cent. The beetles are both adults end larvee, and belong to the following families: Chrysomelide (leaf- eating beetles), Zenebrionide (darkling beetles), Elateridw (wire- worms), Carabide (ground beetles), Dermestidw (dermestids), Coe- cinellide (ladybirds), and snout beetles (suborder Rhynchophora). The leaf-eating beetles include Diabrotica soror, a western representa- tive of the destructive twelve-spotted cucumber beetle. Flea beetles also are eaten, including species of the genus /Zaltica. Among the @ Recreation, vol. 18, p. 868, 1893. » Life Hist. N. Am. Birds [I], p. 26, 1892. 50 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. miscellaneous leaf-eating beetles may be mentioned the brilliant Gas- troideu cesia. Conspicuous among the ground beetles eaten is the common Agonoderus pallipes, and among the useful predaceous lady- birds the species Hippodamia convergens. Like the eastern bobwhite, the California quail feeds on ants of the families Pormicide and Myrmicide. Sometimes 20 to 35 ants are taken at a meal. Of the other Hymenoptera, gall insects (Cynipide) and their galls make a significant proportion. Caterpillars and their pupe are eaten. Cut- worms (Agrotis), measuring worms (Geometride), sphinx caterpil- lars (including Deilephila), and the cotton bollworm (Heliothis obsoleta) make wp the greater part of this food. Like the bobwhite again, this bird shows a relish for bugs. It eats leaf bugs (Cupside), bugs of the chinch bug family, such as Lygeus truculentis and L. bitriangularis, and stink bugs (Pentatomide), assassin bugs (edu- viide), flat bugs (.lradide), burrower bugs (Crytomenus), leaf hop- pers (Jassidw), tree hoppers (.embracide), plant lice, and bugs of the genus Scolops (Fulgoride). The miscellaneous animal matter taken includes flies (Lucillia cesar), spiders, and snails. VEGETABLE Foon. FRUIT. The vegetable food of this quail amounts to 97.85 per cent of its diet. The bird has an unsavory reputation among fruit growers, especially the owners of vineyards. Relative to this subject, Miss Florence A’ Merriam, writing from San Diego County, Cal., says: In fact, the quail were so abundant as to be a pest. For several years great flocks of them came down the canyons to Major Merriam’s vineyard, where they destroyed annually from twenty to thirty tons of fruit. In one season—July to October, 1881—one hundred and thirty dozen [1,560] were trapped on his ranch. The result of this wholesale destruction was manifest when I returned to the valley in 1894. The birds were then rarely seen on the roads and seldom flushed in riding about the valley.e © When this species becomes superabundant and plays havoc with crops it is well to remember that it can be so easily checked. W. H. Osgood, of the Biological Survey, has furnished the writer data on the frugivorous habits of the quail in central California. In one vineyard he saw a flock of about a thousand eating zinfandel ‘grapes. The birds do much damage in September, when the young are molt- ing and they have collected in packs, as before described. Walter EK. Bryant, writing of the damage to fruit, offers testimony on the other side: In some parts of California there is a strong prejudice against the quail, owing to alleged damage to the grape. The evidence which I have thus far gathered shows that the quail do pick at the bunches of grapes, and not alone u Auk, XITI, p. 116, 1896. FOOD HABITS. 51 those bunches which are rear or on the ground; but the damage which they cause seems overestimated. Too often mutilated bunches of grapes are supposed to be due to the presence of quail in the vineyard; but there are other birds and mammals, also, which vary their diet with grapes. I have examined a number of quail’s crops and gizzards without finding the presence of grapes, although the birds had been shot near and in vineyards. A quail’s crop sent to me from Los Gatos, by Mr. A. H. Hawley, contained twenty-five small grapes; others had a few grapes, seeds, and poison-oak berries.¢ In the 601 stomachs of the valley quail examined by the Biological Survey grapes formed only 0.01 per cent of the annual food. This small quantity is due, no doubt, to the fact that many of the birds were shot in regions remote from vineyards and many of them during the time when grapes were not in fruit. The total proportion of all kinds of fruit was only 7.60 per cent, an amount so insignificant as to preclude the idea of serious damage. Where the birds are over- abundant and the consequent damage great, trapping or advertising the conditions in sporting papers will probably result in reducing the numbers to normal. Of the 7.60 per cent of fruit, grapes, as before stated, contribute 0.01 per cent; plants of the genus RAus, mainly Rhus diversiloba, 4.74 per cent, and miscellaneous fruit, prunes, and vaccinium, 2.85 per cent. The maximum quantity of fruit, amount- ing to 32.40 per cent for the month, was taken in December, after the grapes had been picked. GRAIN. The relations of the California quail to grain are of considerable economic importance. W. T. Craig, of San Francisco, writes to the Department of Agriculture: “ I have observed the quail enter a field of wheat to the number of thousands, and had they not been driven away they would have destroyed the whole crop.” No other reports to the Biological Survey show the danger to grain from this quail to be so serious, but data at hand show that it does more or less damage to germinating grain. Two quail shot by Walter E. Bryant on a newly-sown grain field had eaten, respectively, 185 kernels and 210 kernels of barley.”. Barley is important in California, where it is grown for hay, for grain feed, and for beer making. There is, how- ever, much volunteer barley, which many species of birds feed on and thus do good rather than harm. It is probable that quail do little or no harm to barley at harvest time, and the waste grain that they subsequently gather in stubble fields has no positive value. Of the yearly food of the 601 quail examined 6.18 per cent was grain, divided as follows: Barley, 4.58 per cent; wheat, 0.44 per cent; corn and oats, 1.16 per cent. a Zoe, IV, p. 56, 1893. b Zoe, IV, p. 55, 1898. 52 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. LEAVES. In its habit of feeding on foliage the California quail differs from the bobwhite and resembles the ruffed grouse. Such food forms 22.73 per cent of the vegetable matter eaten. In February, when the bob- white is weathering blizzards, the California quail is enjoying balmy weather and feeding on browse to the extent of 80 per cent of its food. Most of this browse consists of leaves of leguminous plants, princi- pally clovers. Bur clover (d/edicago denticulata), a weed that grows in cultivated land and along irrigation ditches, appears to sup- ply most of the forage. Alfalfa and clovers of the genus alfalfa form most of the remaining leguminous green food. Next to legumes the finely divided leaves of alfilaria, or ‘ filaree’ (Hrodium), are im- portant. Grass, chickweed (Alsine media), the leaves of fern, geranium, oxalis, and groundsel-bush (Baccharis) also furnish forage for the quail. W. W. Cooke reports that near Grand Junction, Colo., where the California coast quail has been introduced and thrives wonderfully, market gardeners regard it as a nuisance.4 WEED SEEDS. Different seeds, largely of weeds, furnish the California quail 59.77 per cent of its year’s diet. Legumes contribute 17.87 per cent; alfi- laria, 13.38 per cent; composite, 5.55 per cent; the spurge family (Euphorbiacee), 5.85 per cent, and miscellaneous plants 17.12 per cent. Leguminous seeds are liked best by the bird, and make up 17.87 per cent of the seed diet for the year and 46.1 per cent of its food for June. Bur clover yields abundance of seeds as well as forage. Its seed pod is peculiar, much elongated, beset with long, sharp spines, and spirally coiled into a roundish bur. The quail swallows it whole, regardless of spines. This food is highly nutri- tious and is relished by stock as well as by birds and wild mammals. Seeds of closely allied plants, such as alfalfa, vetch, cassias, culti- vated beans and peas, and clovers of the genera Trifolium, Lespedeza, and Melilotus also are in the quail’s list, as well as of locust (obinia) and lupines, the latter taken in large quantities. They include the seeds of Lupinus nanus, L. micranthus, and L. sparsiftorus. Other leguminous seeds are eaten in great numbers, including a small bean- like seed, Lotus glaber, which looks much like a miniature Frankfurt sausage, and an unidentified, almost microscopic square seed, with a notch in its edge, possibly some species of birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus). Nearly all of the leguminous plants that furnish the quail with seeds belong in the category of weeds. Seeds of weeds from other families of plants make up no less than ¢ Birds of Colorado, App. 2, p. 202, 1900. f FOOD HABITS. 53 41.89 per cent of the annual food. Seeds of composite yield 5.55 per cent, such injurious weeds as thistles making up the largest part of this percentage. The thistles most often eaten are Centaurea meli- tensis, C. americana, C. solstitialis, Ma- riana mariniana, Sonchus sp., and Car- duus sp. AM. mariniana has the largest ‘ seeds. Ninety of these had been eatenby & w a quail shot by F. E. L. Beal at Hay- » wards, Cal., August 15, 1903. The seeds _ of the bur thistle (Centaurea melitensis) = are smaller and have a hook at one end - and a set of spines like a paint brush at the other. They are, perhaps, most liked Fie. 4.—Seed of mayweed (Anthe- of all composite seeds. From 500 to 800 = ™# cotula). (From Bull. 38, Ne vada Agricultural Experiment are often eaten ata meal. The destruc- station.) tion of this seed is highly beneficial, for the bur thistle is troublesome to farmers. Wild carrot (Daucus carota), tar weed (JI/adia sativa), wild lettuce (Lactuca sp.), mayweed (Anthemis cotula), and marsh elder (Iva wanthi- folia) furnish most of the remaining seeds of composite plants. Tar weed is a favorite source of food, and one stomach, collected at Watsonville, Cal., by J. S. Hunter, contained 700 of these seeds. Another stomach, from the same place, held 2,000 tiny seeds of dog fennel, or mayweed. (Fig. 4.) re Ge From seeds of plants belonging to the spurge cutarium). (From Lamily (E'uwphorbiacew) come 5.85 per cent of the ae eg annual food. Spurges, particularly Croton setige- periment Station.) 7%, commonly known as turkey mullein, are a staple with the California quail as with most other seed- eating birds. So fond are the quail of turkey mullein that their crops are often completely 2% &@ distended with the seeds, sometimes from 500 oe to 900 toa bird. Turkey mullein isa prostrate 9% 6 plant covered with a whitish, woolly pubes- © 6 cence, and often used by the Indians to poison 2 fish. Seeds of alfilaria (Hrodium cicutariwm Fic. 6—Seed of black mus- and other species), which is both a weed and a ee oo forage plant, are eagerly sought. They are Agricultural Experiment lance-shaped, furnished with a long, elaborate, S*%°?? corkscrew awn ending in a thin spine. They burrow into sheep’s wool and even pierce the skin. The alfilaria is one of the few seeds of the West that all seed-eating birds consume, The plant is very 54 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. abundant in California, and the quail often eats from 1,000 to 1,600 of the little corkscrew seeds at a meal. It affords 13.38 per cent of the year’s food,.and 26.70 per cent-of the June diet. (Fig. 5.) Seeds of miscellaneous weeds comprise 17.11 per cent of the annual food. Among the species, included are pigweed (Chenopodium al- »* Fi. 7.--Seed of chickweed (Alsine media). (From Bull. 47, Nevada Agricultural Ix. periment Station.) bum), rough pigweed (Amaranthus retroflenus), and black mustard (Brassica nigra) (fig. 6)—especially obnoxious in grain fields—and- the closely related weed, wild radish (Raphanus sativus). Seeds of shepherd’s purse (Bursa bursa-pastoris) and of other cruciferous 0 Vr @ Fic. 8.—Seed of Geranium disscctum. (From Bull. 47, Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station.) plants are included in common with silene and the chickweeds (Ceras- tium sp. and Alsine media) (fig. 7). Geranium seeds (fig. 8) are so much relished that often 300 or 400 are eaten at a time. Two closely related plants, miner’s lettuce (J/ontia perfoliata) and red Fic. 9.—Seed of sorrel (Rumcuv ucetosella). (From Bull. 47, Nevada Agricultural Ex- periment Station.) maids (Calandrinia menziesiz), bear minute shiny black seeds that often are eaten by the thousand. The little seeds of red sorrel (Ru- mex acetosella) (fig. 9) and curled dock (Rumew crispus) are occa- sionally taken in almost as large numbers. Seeds of chess (Bromus FOOD HABITS. E 55 secalinus (fig. 10) and Bromus hordeaceus) , a serious grain pest, are relished, and hundreds of the grain-like seeds of the grass known as ‘poison darnel’ (Lolium temulentum ) appear in crops examined, Macoun, quoting Spreadborough, states that in British Columbia, where it winters successfully, the quail finds shelter in severe weather under the broom (Cytisus seoparius), which in places grows abun- dantly and vields seed for subsistence.¢ The quail feeds also at times on mast. A. K. Fisher, in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada. the last of July found both young and adult quail eating young acorns.? Small quantities of sedge seeds (Curex and Scirpus) and of dodder (Cuseuta) are eaten, the latter plant being a destructive parasite on leguminous forage crops. The miscellaneous seed list includes also stick seeds (Lappula sp.), buttercup (Ranunculus sp.). bind weed (Convoleulus sp.), Am- sackia sp., Anagallis arvensis, plaintain (Plantago major), ribgrass (Plantago lanceolata), painted cup (Castilleja sp.), mountain lilac Fic. 10.—Seed of chess (Bromus secalinus). (From Bull. 47, Nevada Agricultural Ex- periment Station.) (Ceanothus sp.), and black wattle (Callicoma serratifolia). In the mountains of Lower California the food supply determines the breed- ing time of birds. If there is not enough rain for a good supply of seeds the coveys of quail do not break up into nesting pairs but remain in coveys throughout the summer. If the season is wet and the winter rains promise abundant food the birds mate in March and begin nest- ing immediately.° Foop oF THE YOUNG. The food of young birds differs from that of the parents, as has already been remarked of the bobwhite, but the difference is less marked with the California quail. Stomachs of 32 young of the western birds, from one-fourth to one-half grown, have been exam- ined. They were collected from the middle of July to the middle of September. The food was composed of 3.4 per cent animal matter aCat. Can. Birds, Part I, p. 198, 1900. ON. A. Fauna, No. 7, p. 28, 1893. ¢ Life Hist. N. A. Birds [I], p. 27, 1892. 56 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. and 96.6 per cent vegetable matter. Thirty-nine adult birds shot in the same period had eaten almost entirely vegetable food, since only 0.6 per cent of animal food appeared in analysis. Had the young birds been collected when newly hatched, undoubtedly a larger pro- portion of insect food would have been found. The 3.4 per cent of insect food mentioned consisted of beetles, 0.1 per cent; bugs, 0.2 per cent; grasshoppers, 1.3 per cent, and ants, 1.8 per cent. The vegetable food of the young is much like that of the adult. In this case it consisted of leguminous seeds, 18.1 per cent; alfilaria seeds, 18.5 per cent; miscellaneous seeds, 54.4 per cent; browse, 6.6 per cent; grain, 0.6 per cent, and miscellaneous vegetable matter, 0.4 per cent. GAMBEL QUAIL. (Lophortyx gambeli.) (PLATE I1.] The Gambel quail in general appearance is much like the valley quail, but, among other differences, lacks the scalelike feathers of the lower parts and has considerable chestnut along the flanks. It lives in the Lower Sonoran zone, from western Texas to southeastern Cali- fornia and from southern Utah and Nevada south through central Sonora, Mexico. The desert is its home, but it is rarely found far from water. Its favorite haunts are patches of bushy vegetation, such as mesquite, mimosa, creosote, and patches of prickly pear. It fre- quently takes up its abode about cultivated land, living in alfalfa fields or nesting in vineyards. An interesting account of the habits of the Gambel quail in the Pahrump Valley, Nevada, is given by E. W. Nelson: I noticed that when a flock of quail came to feed on grain left by the horses an old male usually mounted the top of a tall bush close by and remained on guard for ten or fifteen minutes; then, if everything was quiet, he would fly down among his companions. At the first alarm the flock would take to the bushes, running swiftly, or flying when hard pressed. They roosted in the dense bunches of willows and cottonwoods growing along the ditches. * * ©¢ When feeding they have a series of low clucking and cooing notes which are kept up almost continually.¢ The love note, according to Coues, may be represented in words as ‘killink, killink.’ Nesting takes place in April, sometimes not till May. About a dozen eggs usually constitute a clutch. In sections where this quail is still numerous the birds pack in bands of from 100 to 500 after the breeding season. From the sportsman’s point of view the Gambel quail as a game bird does not approach the bobwhite. It will sometimes lie to a dog aN. A. Fauna, No. 7, pp. 29, 30, 1893. Bull. 21, Biologica vey, U S. Dept. of Agriculture PLATE Il. GAMBEL QUAIL (LOPHORTYX GAMBELI). GAMBEL QUAIL. 57 fairly well, but as a rule it takes to its legs with all haste and leaves the dog on point, to the vexation of the hunter. It is, however, a useful species, which brightens the desert with its presence and con- tributes a welcome addition to the fare of the traveler. While less valuable than the bobwhite as a destroyer of noxious insects and as an object of sport, this bird well deserves protection for its food value and its beauty. It thrives under desert conditions and might be successfully introduced in the arid regions of Colorado, New fexico, and Texas. FOOD HABITS. Stomachs of 28 birds collected mainly in Arizona and Utah, from January to June, have been examined. Only 0.48 per cent of the food consisted of insects; the remaining 99.52 per cent was vegetable matter. Like the valley quail, this is one of our least insectivorous birds. Its insect diet includes ants, beetles, grasshoppers, leaf hop- pers (Membracide), and stink bugs (Pentatomidw). Among the beetles are the western twelve-spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica soror) and D. tenella. The young chicks, however, will doubtless be found highly insectivorous and therefore useful. The vegetable food of Gambel quail was made up as follows: Grain, 3.89 per cent, miscellaneous seeds, 31.89 per cent, and leaves and plant shoots, 63.74 per cent. From the present investigation the bird appears less frugivorous than any of the other American quails, for not one of the 28 stomachs contained fruit. Observers, however, say that the bird is somewhat frugivorous, and no doubt in a country well stocked with berries and fruit it would rapidly develop a frugivorous taste. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, for instance, state that during summer it makes its home in patches of Solanum and feeds on the tolerably palatable fruit, and also that it is known to eat gooseberries.‘ Coues says: “In the fall it gathers cherries and grapes. * * * It visits patches of prickly pear (Opuntia) to feed upon the soft juicy ‘Tunas’ that are eaten by everything in Arizona, from men and bears to beetles.” ? The grain eaten by the Gambel quail was corn, wheat, and oats. In flocks numbering from 50 to 100, it feeds about grain stacks with domestic poultry. It is even more industrious as a browser on foliage than the valley quail. Succulent foliage and shoots form 63.74 per cent of its food. Much of this comes from alfalfa, bur clover, and the foliage of other legumes. Vernon Bailey, of the Biological Sur- vey, says that at St. Thomas, Ariz., in January, 1889, this quail fairly swarmed on alfalfa fields, feeding on the green leaves and pods. He found flocks of from 25 to 50 in such situations, and during a 4 Birds of Northwest, p. 434, 1874. > Hist. N. Am. Birds, III, p. 483, 1874. 58 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. five minutes’ walk often saw a hundred birds. The same observer, when in Mohave County, Ariz., found that the bird fed principally on juicy plants when it could not procure water. At times it eats grass and its inflorescence, and it has been known to devour showy flowers. In spring it shows a fondness for buds. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway note that then it feeds largely on the, willow buds, which impart to its flesh a distinctly bitter taste. The seed-eating habits of Gambel quail closely resemble those of the valley quail. Leguminous plants furnish the largest part of the seed food—21.17 per cent of the annual diet—alfalfa, bur clover, and kindred plants appearing to be preferred, but cassias, acacias, and lupines also are taken, as well as the.beans of the mesquite, which in many places are a staple with birds and mammals. The seeds of alfilaria (Hrodium cicutarium), another bird staple, furnish 2.28 per cent of the year’s food. Miscellaneous seeds form 8.44 per cent. They are obtained from grasses, mallows (d/alva), and such crucif- erous plants as mustard (Brassica) and peppergrass (Lepidium) ; also from chickweed (Cerastiim) and -Ltriplea. MOUNTAIN QUAIL. (Oreortyx pictus.>) The mountain quail occurs in the forested mountains of the humid Transition Zone of the Pacific coast, from Santa Barbara, Cal., to Washington, and in the mountains of the more arid Transition Zone on the west side of the Cascades in northern Oregeon and south over the Sierra Nevada to northern Lower California. The birds of the Sierra Nevada winter at lower altitudes than they nest, but those of the coast mountains do not make this vertical migration. This species is the largest and among the handsomest of American quail, with two long jet-black crest plumes and rich chestnut throat and flanks, the latter broadly banded transversely with spotless white. The nests of the mountain quail are placed on the ground and usu- ally contain 10 to 12 eggs, which vary from pale-cream color to a much darker due. At Tillamook, Oreg., June 30 and July 4, 1897, A. K. Fisher found newly hatched chicks; and at Donner, Cal., July 11 and 19, at an altitude ranging from 6,100 to 8,000 feet, Vernon Bailey found nine broods, varying in age from newly hatched chicks to half-grown birds. Bendire, quoting L. W. Green, of the United States Fish Commission, says that the earliest date of the nesting of a Hist. N. Am. Birds, III, p. 485, 1874. » The name is used here'to cover both the typical dark’ birds of the humid coast forests (Oreortyx pictus) and the paler one (O. p. plumiferus) of the more arid Transition Zone in the Sierras and Cascades. MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 59 the plumed mountain quail (Oveortyx p. plumiferus) known to him was April 15, and the latest, August 15. He states also that the cock bird takes care of the young.t Chester Barlow, in writing of the habits of the mountain quail, says that at Fyffe, Cal., it begins to nest the last of May or early in June. All nests that he found were built in a growth of ‘mountain misery’ (Cham«batia sp. ) 8 to 10 inches high.’ On Mount Tallac and the higher slopes of Pyra- mid Peak, W. W. Price found newly hatched young as late as August 15. He noted that by September 1 the quail became restless and soon began their peculiar migration from the east slope to the west slope of the Sierras. From 4 to 6 adults with their young form a small band of from 10 to 30 individuals, and pursue their way almost wholly on foot to a more congenial winter climate; and by October 1 all had abandoned elevations above 5,000 feet. In spring they migrate back singly or in pairs.¢ There are many admirers of this bird because of its exquisite plumage, but most sportsmen prefer a game bird that lies better to the dog. Its flesh is excellent, and the bird sells well in the market. H. W. Henshaw reports that in the late fall of 1880 he found the markets of Portland, Oreg., well supplied with live mountain quails which had been trapped in the neighboring mountains, cooped, and sent to the city for sale. Nowhere is it so numerous as the California quail, or the bobwhite in the Southern States, and it is more of a forest-loving species than any other American quail. The mountain quail sometimes enters cleared fields, but so far as the records of the Biological Survey show it does no appreciable damage to cultivated fruits or other crops and it is a useful destroyer of weed seeds. FOOD: HABITS. No stomachs of the mountain quail of the humid regions were available for examination, but Sandys writes that the bird feeds on insects and various seeds, including grain,? and Elliot says it some- times approaches farm buildings in search of scattered kernels of grain.¢ The food of the mountain quail of the arid regions has been studied in the laboratory of the Biological Survey. The stomachs examined, 23 in number, were collected in California. Five were _collected in January, 2 in May, 6 in June, 3 in July, 3 in August, and aLife Hist. N. Am. Birds [I], p. 16, 1892. b Condor, 3, p. 158, 1901. ¢ Condor, 3, pp. 158, 160, 1901. @Upland Game Birds, p. 93, 1902. éGallinaceous Game Birds N. A., p. 42, 1897. 60 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. 6 in November. The food consisted of animal matter, 3 per cent, and vegetable matter, 97 per cent. The animal food was made up of grasshoppers, 0.05 per cent; beetles, 0.23 per cent; miscellaneous insects, including ants and lepidopterous pups, 1.90 per cent; and centipedes and harvest spiders (Phalangide), 0.82 per cent. Among the beetles was a species of the firefly family (Zampyridw), a ground beetle (Carabide), and a leaf beetle (Haltica sp.). Vernon Bailey informs the writer that the young eat many ants. The vegetable food consisted of grain, 18.20 per cent; seeds, practically all of weeds or other worthless plants, 46.61 per cent; fruit, 8.11 per cent; and miscellaneous vegetable matter, 24.08 per cent. The grain included wheat, corn, barley, and oats. Of the seed element the seeds of grasses formed 7.78 per cent; of legumes, 10.41 per cent; of weeds of the family HL'uphorbiacew, 3.16 per cent; of alfilaria (Hrodium cicutarium), 2.76 per cent; and of miscellaneous weeds, 22.50 per cent. The legume seeds include seeds of alfalfa, cassia, bush clover, vetch, and lupine. The miscellaneous seeds come from wild carrot (Daucus carota), tar weed (Madia sativa), Collomia sp., Amsinchia sp., labiate plants, dwarf oak, snowbush (Ceanothus cordulatus), and thistle. Concerning the feeding habits of mountain quail of the dry coun- try (O. p. plumiferus), J. E. McClellan says: * Their feeding hours are early in the morning and just before sundown in the evening, when they go to roost in the thick tops of the scrub live oaks. Their feeding habits are similar to those of the domestic hen. They are vigorous scratchers, and will jump a foot or more from the ground to nip off leaves.”* This bird is especially fond of the leaves of clover and other leguminous plants. It feeds also on flowers, being known to select those of Composite and blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium). Flowers, leaves, buds, and other kinds of vegetable matter form the 24.08 per cent marked miscellaneous. The birds probably eat more fruit than these stomach examinations indicate. Lyman Belding says that this quail feeds on service berries, and that during certain seasons it lives almost entirely on grass bulbs (Aelica bulbosa) , which it gets by scratching, for which its large, powerful feet are well adapted. The fruit in its bill of fare includes gooseberries, service berries (Amelanchier alnifolia), and grapes (Vitis californica). The bird is probably fond also of manzanita berries, for it is often seen among these shrubs. @MS. Records, Biological Survey. SCALED QUAIL. 61 SCALED QUAIL. (Callipepla squamata.) The ‘cotton top,’ or scaled quail, as it is commonly known, is bluish gray on the back, with black-edged feathers on the under parts, which appear like large scales. Its conspicuous white-tipped crest has given it the local name of cotton top. It is found in southern Colorado and in the Upper and Lower Sonoran zones from Arizona to western and southern Texas and south to the Valley of Mexico. The birds of the lower Rio Grande region are darker than those far- ther west. According to Bendire, this quail lives on open arid plains overgrown with yucca, cactus, and sagebrush, and often gathers in coveys numbering 25 to 80. It lays about a dozen eggs, and he be- eves that two or three broods are reared ina season. The cock assists in the care of the young, but not in incubation.® FOOD HABITS. The food habits of this game bird are of especial interest. Stom- achs and crops of 47 specimens have been examined, most of which came from New Mexico, the others from Arizona and Texas. They were collected as follows: January, 7; May, 1; June, 2; July, 3; September, 13; October, 19, and November, 2. As with all other gallinaceous birds, more or less mineral matter is swallowed, usually small pieces of quartz. The food consisted of animal matter, 29.6 per cent, and vegetable matter, 70.4 per cent. The food of the cotton top differs from that of all other American quails in that it contains a large proportion of insects. These com- prise no less than 29.03 per cent of its food, a percentage almost. twice as great as that of the bobwhite, although if more stomachs of the present species had been available for examination the ratio might have been different. However, the important fact is established that this bird is a large consumer of insects, instead of being, like most other western quail, practically graminivorous. Of the insect. food, grasshoppers comprise 15.86 per cent; beetles, 10.43 per cent, and mis- cellaneous insects, largely ants, 3.27 per cent. A few spiders also are taken, but they constitute only 0.03 per cent of the food for the year. The beetles are in the larval as well as the adult forms. The family of ground beetles (Carabidw), a favorite one with terrestrial birds, is well represented. A single beetle with a featherlike antenna, of the family Pyrochroidw, had been eaten. Some longicorn beetles and plant-eating scarabeid beetles also were eaten. A bird collected in 4 The name of the species is used here to include both the typical scaled quail (Callipepla squamata) and the more restricted chestnut-bellied quail of south- ern Texas (C. 8. castanogastris). > Life Hist, N, A, Birds [1], pp. 18-20, 1892. cae 62 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. June had consumed 44 of the latter beetles, which were leaf chafers, apparently closely related to the genus Serica. The scaled quail destroys also weevils, such as the clover weevil, Sitones, and certain species of the family Otcorhynchide, or scarred snout beetles. It takes also leaf beetles, the very injurious twelve-spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica 12-punctata). Further studies of the beetle food undoubtedly will disclose a large number of pests. The bird will probably be found to be a useful consumer also of grasshoppers, since a third of its September food consisted of them. Their remains were so fragmentary, however, that identification of species was un- satisfactory. In one case a member of the genus 7’rimerotropis was recognized. Ants had been eaten by 15 of the 47 birds examined. The other miscellaneous insects included small bugs (Heteroptera) and the chrysalis of a fly. One of the queerest objects found by the writer in birds’ stomachs is the ‘ ground pearl’ (M/argarodes), sev- eral hundred of which were contained in the stomach of a cotton top shot at Roswell, N. Mex., June 17, 1899. They are lustrous and look like pearls, but are merely scale insects that feed on the roots of plants. Vegetable matter furnished 70 per cent of the food of the scaled quail. Grain contributed 0.57 per cent; seeds, mostly weed seeds, 52.85 per cent; fruit, 12.65 per cent, and leaves and other green tissue, 4.33 per cent. The species resembles the ruffed grouse in its habit of feeding on green leaves and tender shoots. It feeds upon budded twigs, but more often limits its choice to chlorophyll-bearing tissue, often picking green seed pods of various plants. Like domestic fowls, it eats grass blades. Fruit was eaten by only 6 of the 47 birds, and none was taken from cultivated varieties. As might be expected from inhabitants of arid plains, these birds like the fruit of cacti, and have been found feeding on the prickly pear (Opuntia lind- heimeri). The fruit of Jbervillea lindheimeri also is eaten. The blue berries of Adelia angustifolia, which furnish many desert birds and mammals with food, are often eaten by the scaled quail. Differ- ent kinds of Rubus fruits are relished, and the berries of Koeberlinia spinosa and Momisia pallida also are eaten. The fruit and succulent parts of plants no doubt serve in part in the parched desert as a sub- stitute for water. Seeds of various plants form a little more than half of the food. Legumes furnish 21.84 per cent, the mesquite (Prosopis juliflora), a staple with both man and beast, being utilized, as are the seeds of mimosa (J/. biuncifera), besides various cassias and lupines. Seeds of vetch (Vicia sp.) are a favorite food, and Morongia roemeriana is eaten. The bird likes seeds of Afedicago, and at times will eat clover seeds. Miscellaneous weed seeds yield 31.01 per cent of the annual food. Nearly half of these are seeds of bindweed (Convolvulus sp.), MEARNS QUAIL. 63 an abundant and troublesome weed in the South, where it often throt- tles other plants. The following miscellaneous seeds were found among their food : Thistle (Carduus sp.). Borage (Amsinckia sp.). Wild sunflower (Helianthus annuus). Mallow (Malva rotundifolia). Coreopsis (Coreopsis coronaria). Turkey mullein (Croton setigerus). Aster (Aster sp.). Croton (Croton texrensis), Chamomile (Anthemis sp.). Alfilaria (Hrodium cicutarium). Pigweed (Amaranthus sp.). Spurge (Huphorbia sp.). Gromwell (Lithospermum sp.). Grass seeds have not yet been found in quantity in the crop of the species, but panicum seeds have been recognized. In summing up the economic status of the scaled quail it should be noted that although the bird is a desert species, it comes into more or less direct relation with agriculture, sometimes feeding upon culti- vated land and about farm buildings. Moreover, half of its food consists of the seeds of weeds. Lastly, it is highly insectivorous, fully one-fourth of its food consisting of insects. MEARNS QUAIL. (Cyrtonyx montezume mearnsi.e) The pervading colors of the male Mearns quail are black, white, and chestnut. Its thick speckles of white and its peculiar shape sug- gest a miniature guinea hen. The species is found on the table-lands of Mexico from the City of Mexico north to western Texas, New Mex- ico, and Arizona, but the bird considered here is limited to the northern part of this range. It is a confiding bird and either from excess of curiosity or from stupidity has been known to remain on the ground to be killed by a stick. From this lack of suspicion it has received the name ‘ fool quail.’ It affords the sportsman with a dog much better shooting than its more erratic crested relatives. Grassy or bushy cover is more necessary to this bird than to the scaled quail or Gambel quail. Unlike the latter species, it does not pack, though it is more or less mi- gratory. Its nesting habits are not well known. Bendire describes a nest found in Kinney County, Tex., June 22, 1890. It was placed. in a depression of the ground, and contained 10 eggs. FOOD HABITS. The food habits of the Mearns quail are not well known. The Biological Survey has examined the contents of 9 crops and stom- @The typical Massena quail (Cyrtonys montezum@) is a bird of the moun- tains about the Mexican table-land, and gives way to the paler Mearns quail (Oo. m. mearnsi) in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. 64 BOBWHITE AND OTHER QUAILS OF UNITED STATES. achs, secured in Texas and New Mexico during August and November. Two of the birds were killed in a patch of cactus. They contained seeds and spines from the prickly pear, acacia, and other seeds, grass blades, and a trace of insects—weevils and other beetles—hbesides a large quantity of coarse sand and iron ore. The other 7 birds were shot in August. Two had their crops filled with the bulbs of a Hly. The others also had eaten lily bulbs, which in the 5 birds made three- fourths of the food. The other food was prickly pear fruit, seeds of legumes and spurges, and such insects as weevils, smooth caterpillars, hairy caterpillars, bugs, crickets, and grasshoppers. Cassin states that the contents of the crop of a specimen sent him from Texas by Captain French “ consisted exclusively of fragments of insects, pro- nounced by Doctor Leconte to be principally grasshoppers and a specimen of Spectrum.” * According to. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, the Mearns quail appeared quite at home in cultivated fields and stubble of the ranches.2X. Away from civilization it prefers districts covered with open forest, with alternate areas of grass and scattered bushy undergrowth, or hillsides covered with grass and bushes. Its habits vary considerably with the locality. Bendire records that the species lives in rocky ravines and arroyos, but quickly adapts itself to ranch conditions and may be seen running about to gather kernels of scattered grain. He says also that it is fond of acorns, mountain laurel, arbutus, cedar, and other berries, and notes that its large, strong feet are well suited to unearthing the bulbs on which it feeds. He found holes 2 inches deep which it had dug for this purpose. These quail often come out into mountain roads to search for scattered grain and to dust-themselves. As they are readily tamed, they could doubtless be successfully introduced into other regions. @T)lustration of Birds of California, Texas, etc., p. 25, 1856. o Hist. N. Am. Birds, III, p. 492, 1874. Page Animal food of bobwhite _____._____________ Sees a ee a i oe 45 Beetles eaten by bobwhite _________________~_____-___-_______ eee 38442 Bobwhite! ewes soe sooo ao Se ee es ee - 9-46 animal food 22 222225. (oie eS sooo bet een oe mes eee Beas 45 as an ally of the farmer___..____________._________-____-_____-_-_- 14 as an articlée-of, food... 22 ccacecec seccesteeceseceoeewesucu Ss 16 as an asset of the farm__-_---__-_--__--_-__-____________-_-----_--_. 15 as an: ObjeCt OL Sport -225 552 2scccsce cette cee eee ee eS 16 breeding Nabts) soe 22 se soe eect ohh ee ie ee ee 11 Call, MOtCS. 225 ace ok ee eee ee eee 10 decrease _____---__-_____-__-_-- Pens DENRA Ted Remi Grenache a A eeam 18 esthetic value 1¢ fOOG Nabits 22.224 2 Ae ee ee eae 276 Penerall Na Dits) Bul. 2, Div, Econ, Ornith., Dept. Agri., p. 105, 1888. PRAIRIE HEN. 11 may be realized from the fact that in 1902 the supply at from $3 to $5 a brace nowhere met the demand. Years ago prairie chickens were shipped east by carloads, but to-day scarcity of birds and a com- mendable stringency of laws practically preclude shipments. Many sportsmen declare that there is no better sport than ‘ chicken ’ shooting. The bird unquestionably is one of the noblest of game birds. Though in speed of flight it by no means equals the ruffed - grouse or the bobwhite, it furnishes fine sport when hunted with dogs. Karly in the season, in suitable cover, it lies to a dog like a stone. So reluctant occasionally is it to fly that it can hardly be put up, and Professor Cooke informs the writer that several times while hunting in northern Minnesota he saw a pointing dog jump and catch a three- fourths grown prairie hen. Late in the fall, however, when gathered in large packs, they do not lie well. Early in the season—that is, during the last two weeks of August and the first part of September—the prairie hen affords a better test of a dog’s ability to hunt fast and to range out a mile or more from the gun than does the bobwhite. It is for this reason that field trials on ‘ chickens’ are always well patronized, and the dogs that win are highly valued. So highly esteemed is the prairie chicken as the quarry of ‘racing’ dogs that abundant means for the restocking of suitable places with the species is likely to be forthcoming from field- trial patrons. The ideal conditions for ‘ chicken’ shooting are real- ized in a fenceless country, where it is possible for the hunter to drive, while the dogs range from a quarter of a mile to a mile away from the wagon. As soon as they point game the sportsman hurries up and shoots. The driver ‘marks down’ the birds that escape and perhaps fly half a mile before alighting. Then the wagon advances to where they dropped, and shooting is again in order. In some parts of the country the sport stops at 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning, because of the intense heat during the middle of the day, when the birds are resting in places difficult of access, and is not resumed before 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon. PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION. The prairie hen deserves well of man. It is beneficial to agricul- ture, is one of the best table delicacies, and its booming call is the dominant spring note of the plains, as the bird is their most character- istic resident. Furthermore, the number of entries to the yearly field trials on ‘chickens’ speak for it as an object of sport. In view of all the good qualities of the bird, the causes of its diminished numbers should be sought, and adequate means applied to preserve it from extinction. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the prairie hen was 12 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. extremely abundant throughout Ohio and Kentucky. It is now rare in both States. A part of the ground it has lost in the East it has gained by a westward and northward movement. It has followed the grain fields of the pioneers of the plains, and with the extension of grain culture into Minnesota and Manitoba it has become plentiful there. According to Doctor Hatch, it was by no means common when the white man first came to Minnesota, and he says that in Illinois as late as 1836 a hunter was extremely lucky if he could bag a dozen in a day. Some years later, with much less effort, one could have shot 50 in a day, and there were records of 100 to a single gun.* The former status of the bird in the East is well indicated by Audubon’s classic observations at Henderson, Ky., in 1810. Audubon says:? In those days during the winter the Grous would enter the farm-yard and feed with the poultry, alight on the houses, or walk in the very streets of the villages. I recollect having caught several in a stable at Henderson, where they had followed some Wild Turkeys. In the course of the same winter, a friend of mine, who was fond of practicing rifle shooting, killed upwards of forty in one morning, but picked none of them up, so satiated with Grous was he, as well as every member of his family. My own servants preferred the fattest flitch of bacon to their flesh, and not unfrequently laid them aside as unfit for cook- ing. * * * They could not have been sold at more than one cent apiece. + * * So rare have they become in the markets of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, that they sell at from five to ten dollars the pair. So far as the sportsman is concerned, the prairie hen is now extinct in Kentucky, and nowhere is the royal game bird even approximately so abundant as it formerly was in that State. There is little good chicken shooting east of the Mississippi. The best now to be had is in Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Manitoba. For- tunately many people are actively interested in the protection and preservation of the prairie hen and excellent laws in its behalf already exist. There is a constantly growing sentiment in favor of nonresi- dent hunting licenses and a legal limit to the day’s bag, while some States afford the bird absolute protection for a period of years, ° and their example should be followed wherever it is growing scarce. The passage of nonexport laws in most of the States has been pro- ductive of much good. These State laws have been made effective by a recent Federal law—the Lacey Act—which prohibits interstate commerce in game killed in violation of local laws. Through its operation the sale of the prairie hen was virtually stopped in 1902 and 1903 in all the large cities of the East. Absolute enforcement of this law and successful prohibition of local sales must be effected before a Birds of Minnesota, p. 163, 1892. > Ornith. Biog. II, p. 491, 1835. ¢ Illinois, Louisiana, and Oregon protect prairie hens until 1909, and Michigan and the Province of Ontario until 1910. PRAIRIE HEN. 138 the safety of the bird is assured. The laws relating to the close season have been greatly improved, but in some States the open sea- son (four months in Oklahoma and South Dakota) is still too long. The preservation of the prairie hen is far more difficult than that of the bobwhite. The bobwhite is more prolific and does not require so extensive a range. Moreover, it is swifter of wing and habitually dives into the woods to escape the hunter. Before the hammerless gun and the wide-ranging bird dog the grouse of the open prairie falls an easy victim. It has to contend also with the trapper, besides predatory birds, reptiles, and mammals. Its most deadly enemy, however, is the prairie fire in spring, which destroys every nest within its sweep. E. W. Nelson informs the writer that in the early seventies in northwestern Illinois the farmers in many places burned the prairies in spring after the prairie hens nested, and often gathered for household use large numbers of the eggs thus exposed. Were it pos- sible for stockmen to burn the grass a little earlier it would result in the saving of thousands of birds. The prairie hen has the advantage, however, of yielding more readily to domestication than the bobwhite, and strong efforts should be made to establish preserves of domesticated birds for restocking country where the species is extinct. Successful enterprises of this kind would be profitable. That such domestication is possible and even feasible, the appended quotation from Audubon implies: ¢ The Pinnated Grous is easily tamed, and easily kept. It also breeds in con- finement, and I have often felt surprised that it has not been fairly domesticated. While at Henderson, I purchased sixty alive, that were expressly caught for me within twelve miles of that village, and brought in a bag laid across the back of a horse. I cut the tips of their wings, and turned them loose in a garden and orchard about four acres in extent. Within a week they became tame enough to allow me to approach them without their being frightened. * * * In the course of the winter they became so gentle as to feed from the hand of my wife, and walked about the garden like so many tame fowls, mingling occasionally with the domestic poultry. * * * When spring returned they strutted, ‘ tooted,’ and fought, as if in the wilds where they had received their birth. Many laid eggs, and a good number of young ones made their appearance. There is great probability of success in the restocking of much of the former range of the prairie hen if undertaken in the proper way and properly sustained by adequate protective laws. Successful results would materially add to the assets of every farm. FOOD HABITS. For the purposes of this report the contents of 71 stomachs of prairie hens have been examined. Fortunately this material repre- sents not only the shooting season, but all other months except July. Most of the stomachs came from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wis- ¢ Ornith. Biog. II, p. 495, 1835. 14 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. consin, Nebraska, and Texas; Illinois and Ontario furnished the rest. The food consisted of 14.11 percent animal matter and 85.89 percent vegetable matter. The former was insects; the latter seeds, fruit, grain, leaves, flowers, and bud twigs. INsEcT Foop. The insect food included 12.78 percent of grasshoppers, 0.48 per- cent of beetles, 0.39 percent of bugs, 0.12 percent of ants and other Hymenoptera, 0.29 percent of other insects, and 0.05 percent of spiders. The ruffed grouse takes about one-sixth less and the bobwhite about one-third more of insects than the prairie hen. Although the bobwhite destroys-injurious grasshoppers, the relative proportions of grasshoppers and beetles consumed by it and by the prairie hen are notably different. In the food of the bobwhite the grasshoppers are to the beetles as 3.71 to 6.92; with the prairie hen the ratio stands as 12.78 to 0.48. Indeed, grasshoppers constitute the bulk of the prairie hen’s animal diet, the reason being probably that on the prairies the grasshoppers vastly outnumber all other sizable insects. For a gallinaceous bird the prairie hen is highly insectivorous from May to October, inclusive, insects constituting one-third of the fare of the specimens shot during this period. The species is particularly valuable as an enemy of the Rocky Mountain locust. During an invasion by this pest in Nebraska, 16 out of 20 grouse killed by Prof. Samuel Aughey from May to October, inclusive, had eaten 866 locusts—a creditable performance, economically rated. Some ornithologists believe that the diminution in the number of prairie hens is in a measure responsible for the ravages of certain insects. Farmers who know these facts must regret the extinction of the bird in States where it once thrived, and they may well support measures for reintroducing and protecting it. Almost every kind of grasshopper and locust appears to be accept- able to the prairie hen. In the following list are named the species. of short-horned grasshoppers identified in its food : Opomala sp. Schistocerca americana. Mermiria atacris. Cordillacris occipitalis. Philibostroma quadrimaculatum. Stenobothrus curtipennis. Leptysma sp. Melanoplus femur-rubrum. Psolessa sp. Melanoplus atlanis. Ageneotettia scudderi. Melanoplus bivittatus. Spharagemon sp. The prairie hen eats also long-horned grasshoppers (Xiphidium sp., Conocephalus sp., and Orchelimum sp.) and crickets (@ryllus sp.) and tree crickets (@canthus sp.). In its beetle diet the prairie hen makes up in variety what it lacks in quantity. Unlike our common small passerine birds, but like our other gallinaceous birds, it feeds on the harmful leaf beetles. It PRAIRIE HEN. 15 destroys also the potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata), in both adult and larval stages, and the injurious 12-spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica 12-punctata). The stomach of a bird collected by H. P. Attwater, November 7, 1893, in Aransas County, Tex., contained 16 of these latter insects. Among other leaf-eating beetles eaten may be mentioned Chrysomela pulohra, Chrysomela suturalis, Disonycha quinguevittata, Monoxia puncticollis, and Graphops pubescens. The injurious May beetles (Lachnosterna sp.) also are destroyed, as well as weevils (Thecesternus humeralis and other species). Like many other birds, the prairie hen is partial to ground beetles. It has been known to take such kinds as Anisodactylus rusticus, Agonoderus pallipes, Amara sp., and Chlenius sp. It probably feeds also on the different abundant species of Harpalus. Wadybirds are at times de- stroyed, as was attested by remains of Hippodamia convergens con- tained in one stomach. Miscellaneous insects are eaten in small numbers, but are inter- esting because they include a number of the worst insect foes, such as the cotton worm (Alabama argillacea) ,* the army worm (Heliophila unipuncta), several species of cutworms, the yellow bear caterpillar (Diacrisia virginica), cankerworms (Geometride), the Angoumois grain moth (Sitotroga cerealella), and the chinch bug (Blissus leucopterus). The bird’s habits of eating chinch bugs has been re- ported by B. F. Gault, of Chicago, and Prof. F. M. Webster, of the Bureau of Entomology. Other bugs, including stink bugs (Fus- chistus sp.) and the tree hoppers (Sttctocephalus sp.) make part of the food. In addition to ants, such as Formica exsectoides, the prairie hen occasionally eats other Hymenoptera, including Tiphia inornata and gall insects contained in the galls of Cynipide. In its liking for galls and their contents the bird resembles the ruffed grouse and the British pheasant. Further study of the food habits of the prairie hen will unquestion- ably add largely to the foregoing enumeration of insects, but our pres- ent knowledge, incomplete as it is, shows the general character of its insect food, and establishes the value of the species as a destroyer of insect pests. VEGETABLE Foon. From October to April, inclusive, the prairie hen takes little but vegetable food. This element amounts to 85.89 percent for the year. Fruit constitutes 11.79 percent; leaves, flowers, and shoots, 25.09 per- cent; seeds, 14.87 percent; grain, 31.06 percent, and miscellaneous vegetable material, 3.08 percent. Like the bobwhite and the ruffed grouse, the prairie hen is fond of rose hips, and the abundant roses of the prairie yield 11.01 percent ¢ Fourth Rep. U. S. Ent. Commission, p. 88, 1885. 16 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. of its food. This fact perhaps may be a useful hint to anyone who attempts to introduce the bird or to improve its environment. The other fruit found was of little importance—merely 0.78 percent. It was made up of domestic cherries, woodbine berries, sumac, poison ivy, huckleberries, strawberries, partridge berries, mistletoe, wild grapes, the berries of Solanum and Symphoricarpus, and cornel (Cornus asperifolia). Of the frugivorous habits of the prairie hen Audubon writes: 4 In the western country, at the approach of winter, these birds frequent the tops of the sumach bushes, to feed on their seeds, often in such numbers that I have seen the bushes bent by their weight. It is important to note that often when deep snow causes scarcity of other supplies the sumac affords both the prairie hen and the bob- white abundant food. As with the insect food, further investigation undoubtedly will extend the fruit list. The prairie hen eats a much smaller proportion of seeds, with the exception of grain, than the bobwhite, and in this respect is less useful than the latter bird. It is, however, a better weeder than any other grouse, and its services in this particular are worthy of consideration. As before stated, seeds make 14.87 percent of the annual diet. Of these, grass seeds form 1.03 percent; seeds of various polygonums, 8.49 percent, and miscellaneous weed seeds, 5.35 percent. When the nature of the prairie hen’s habitat is recalled it seems strange that the percentage of grass seed is so small. The bobwhite, in contrast, takes 9.46 percent of grass seed. Like the bobwhite and other granivorous birds, the prairie hen often eats the seeds of the various species of panicums, the paspalums, and pigeon grass (Chetochloa viridis). The seeds of different polygonums, or smartweeds, play an impor- tant part in the economy of the prairie hen. They form 8.49 percent of the food. These plants grow profusely where illy drained regions of the plains are under water for a few months in the year. Black bindweed (Polygonum convolvulus) and smartweed (Polygonum lapathifolium), with the closely related dock (Rumew crispus), are included in the bill of fare. Of the 5.35 percent of remaining mis- cellaneous seeds, ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiwfolia) is the most important element, but is insignificant in amount when compared with the same element of the bobwhite’s food. Other composite are eaten by the prairie hen—wild sunflower, coreopsis (Coreopsis cardaminefolia), and others. The prairie hen has a liking for legumes, reminding one again of the bobwhite. It selects two of the latter’s favorites—cassia, and the hog peanut (falcata comosa). It takes also the seeds of a closely related plant, the prairie mimosa (Acuan). It has been known to feed on seeds of water willow (Dianthera sp.), the yellow false garlic (Nothoscordum bivale), ¢Ornith. Biog., II, p.. 501, 1835. PRAIRIE HEN. 17 blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium graminoides), shepherd’s purse (Bursa bursa-pastoris), mercury seeds (Acalypha sp.), croton seeds (Croton sp.), and seeds of purslane (Portulaca oleracea), the seeded pods of the latter being plucked. GRAIN. As a grain eater the prairie hen heads the native gallinaceous birds. Everybody who has gone ‘chicken’ shooting knows how closely the bird is associated with stubble fields. The stomachs and crops examined in the investigation contained 31.06 percent of grain. The bobwhite, another busy stubble feeder, takes only 17.38 percent. The stomach of a grouse shot in June in Nebraska contained 100 kernels of corn and 500 grains of wheat. J. A. Loring, formerly of the Biological Survey, during December in Nebraska found prairie hens feeding in wheat stubble, about straw stacks, and along the edges of cornfields. Doctor Hatch, in writing of their granivorous habits, says: ¢ The grain fields afforded both food and protection for them, until the farmers complained of them bitterly, but not half so bitterly as they did afterwards of the bird destroyers who ran over their broad acres of wheat, oats, and corn in the order of their ripening. Buckwheat, barley, oats, and millet are relished, but corn appears to be the favorite cereal, amounting to 19.45 percent of the annual food. Other grain, principally wheat, was in the ratio of 11.61 per- cent. Amos W. Butler reports that in Indiana, during September, fields of ripening buckwheat are favorite feeding grounds.’ There is reason to believe that sprouting grain is sometimes injured. Audubon speaks of such injury in Kentucky, where the bird was extremely abundant.° Like other gallinaceous birds, the prairie hen likes mast, though naturally it obtains much less than the ruffed grouse. The stomach contents showed the beaked hazelnut (Corylus rostrata) and acorns, including, among others, those of the serub oak (Quercus nana) and the scarlet oak (@Q. coccinea). Like the ruffed grouse, it swallows acorns whole. A bird shot in Minnesota in March had bolted 28 scarlet-oak acorns. LEAVES, FLOWERS, AND SHOOTS. Like other grouse the prairie hen is an habitual browser, to the extent of 25.09 percent of its food. This is divided as follows: Twigs a Birds of Minnesota, p. 163, 1892. » Ann. Rept. Dept. Geol. Ind., 1897, p. 758. ¢ Ornith. Biog., II, p. 491, 1835. 6568—No. 24—05 mM——3 18 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. or shoots, 0.55 percent; flowers, 9.34 percent, and leaves, 15.20 percent. This is only half the amount of similar food taken by the ruffed grouse. Naturally the prairie hen is much less given to budding than the ruffed grouse, but it has been known to pluck buds of poplar, elm, pine, apple, dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa), and black birch (B. lenta). “TI have counted more than 50 on a single apple tree,” writes Audubon,? “ the buds of which they entirely destroyed in a few hours. * * * They were, in fact, looked upon with more abhor- vence than the crows are at present in Massachusetts and Maine, on account of the mischief they committed among the fruit trees of the orchards during winter, when they fed on their buds, or while in the spring months, they picked up the grain in the fields.” This mischief was due largely to the abundance of the birds, a condition never likely to return. The prairie hen shows a marked taste for flowers. A delicate pink rosebud had been plucked by a bird shot at Omega, Nebr., in June. More than a thousand golden-rod heads were found in another. Additional composite flowers devoured were Amphiachyris (Amphia- chyris dracunculoides), sweet balsam (Gnaphalium obtusifolium), and others. The flower and leaf buds of birch and apple also are taken. Small green ovaries of Ruellia and blue-eyed grass were noted in a few cases. These birds eat leaves, including those of the butter- cup, everlasting (Antennaria), red and white clover, and the interest- ing water milfoil (Myriophyllum), often grown in goldfish globes. Foop oF THE YOUNG. The economic value of the prairie hen is due mainly to its destruc- tion of weeds and harmful insects, the latter constituting almost the sole food of the downy chick. Unfortunately only two stomachs of young birds were to be had for examination. The chicks were re- cently hatched Texas prairie hens (7ympanuchus americanus att- wateri). They had eaten 1 tree cricket, 5 undetermined caterpillars, 1 imago of the very destructive Angoumois grain moth, 1 leaf beetle {Monoxia puncticollis), and 19 12-spotted cucumber beetles (Déia- brotica 12-punctata), which do not always confine themselves to cucumbers, but injure more than a dozen other cultivated plants. THE HEATH HEN. (Tympanuchus cupido.) The heath hen, which, to casual view, appears like a small-sized prairie hen, inhabits the scrub oaks of the island of Marthas Vine- yard, on the coast of Massachusetts. It was formerly abundant in @ Ornith. Biog., II, pp. 491 and 501, 1835. LESSER PRAIRIE HEN, 19 Connecticut and the eastern parts of New York, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, and Virginia. As no stomachs of this now rare bird were to be had for examina- tion, we must depend on the work of other investigators for knowl- edge of its food habits. Audubon *¢ quotes David Eckley as follows: The bayberry, which abounds in many parts of Martha’s Vineyard, is the principal food of the Grous particularly such as grows on low bushes near the ground, and is easily reached by the birds. They also feed on the boxberry, or partridge berry, the highland and lowland cranberry, rosebuds, pine and alder buds, acorns, ete. William Brewster in 1890 ascertained that, all told, there were probably only about 200 heath hens, and that they were confined to about 40 square miles of the island of Marthas Vineyard. In speak- ing of their habits, he says: ® At all seasons the heath hens live almost exciusively in the oak woods, where the acorns furnish them abundant food, although, like our ruffed grouse, they occasionally, at early morning and just after sunset, venture out a little way in the open to pick up scattered grains of corn or to pluck a few clover leaves, of which they are extremely fond. They also wander to some extent over the scrub-oak plains, especially when blueberries are ripe and abundant. In winter, during long-continued snows, they sometimes approach buildings to feed upon the grain which the farmers throw out to them. If this bird can be saved from extinction and introduced into many of the Eastern States, it will be much more likely to succeed, on ac- count of its woodland habits and narrow range, than the prairie hen, which requires a more open country and usually does not take refuge in woods from its enemies. Experiments with the heath hen must be made soon, however, or it is likely to become extinct. THE LESSER PRAIRIE HEN. (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus.) The lesser prairie hen is a smaller bird than the common species of the Mississippi Valley and is found from western Texas north to western Kansas. But little of its life history is known. It has been found breeding abundantly the first of June at Fort Cobb, Ind. T., and ‘William Lloyd observed this grouse wintering in Concho and Tom Green counties, Tex. H. C. Oberholser, of the Biological Survey, found them common in August, 1901, in Wheeler County, Tex., where they frequented rolling plains over- grown with oak brush from 1 to 4 feet high. These oaks are ever- green, and the prairie hen feeds upon the buds and young shoots. At the time of Oberholser’s visit the birds were in coveys of from ¢ Ornith. Biog., II, p. 500, 1835. > Forest and Stream, XXXV, p. 188, 1890. 20 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. 15 to 20, but, according to the people of that section, the prairie hens gather in flocks of hundreds in the late fall. At this season they are destructive to unthreshed wheat and oats, tearing off the surface of the stacks. In winter they visit cattle pens and corrals in search of food. During severe winters they are sometimes so numerous that they become a nuisance. Some idea may be had of their abundance during winter from the information secured by Oberholser that one man shipped 20,000 of them from this section in a single season. THE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. (Pediacetes phasianellus.)« The sharp-tailed grouse is about the same size and has the general appearance of the prairie hen. Its range is wide, extending from Lake Michigan to northeastern California, and from northeastern New Mexico to Alaska. In the northern part of the Mississippi Valley its range overlaps that of the prairie hen, and mixed flocks are sometimes seen, but the ‘ spike tail ’ is seldom found in such large num- bers as that species. It shows also much less adaptability to changed conditions and disappears more rapidly after the subjection of its range to agriculture. In regard to its curious courtship, Professor Macoun writes of the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse: ® The malés collect in large npumbers on some hill about the end of April or beginning of May to have their annual dance, which they keep up for a month or six weeks. It is almost impossible to drive them away from one of their hills when they are dancing. One day about the middle of May, I shot into a dancing party, killing two, and wounding another, which flew a short distance. I went to get it, and before I got back to pick up the dead birds, the others were back dancing around them. About a dozen eggs generally make a clutch, and but one brood is reared in a séason. The eggs vary from buff to olive-brown and are usually lightly spotted with brown. From two to three months after hatching, the young are full grown and afford quite as good if not better sport than the prairie hen. They lie well to the dog and usually rise with a noisy, clucking cry; after a short distance the flight changes to an alternation of rapid vibrations of the wings and gliding or sailing on stiffly outspread pinions. The flesh of the young, like that of young prairie hens, is «The sharp-tailed grouse varies in different parts of its range, and has been divided into two geographic forms in addition to the typical bird. These are the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse (Pediacetes phasianellus columbianus), occupying the western part of the bird’s range in the United States, and the prairie sharp- tailed grouse (Pediecetes phasianellus campestris) which covers the plains east of the Rocky Mountains. >» Cat. Can. Birds, pt. 1, p. 212, 1900. SHARP-TAILED GROUSE: 21 light colored and deliciously flavored. After the birds begin to pack they afford little sport to the hunter. The sharp-tailed grouse are partly migratory. In winter they take refuge in the highest trees, walking among the branches almost as nimbly as the ruffed grouse. Like the latter, the present species has a habit of plunging into the snow to spend the wintry night. It has many natural enemies in the winter, and in summer the golden eagle has been known to feed its young very largely upon its flesh. Its struggle for existence is unusually severe. Wherever it abounds, in accessible districts, it is pursued relentlessly by the sportsman; but where diminished to a certain point, as on its western and northern ranges, hunting it is largely abandoned. Probably some decades will pass, therefore. before it will be in danger of total extinction. As it does not readily accept civilization, it is not likely to become a popular bird in our growing game preserves, which each year become of greater economic importance. FOOD HABITS. The food habits of the sharp-tailed grouse have been studied in connection with the present paper by the examination of 43 stomachs. These were collected in every month of the year except January and March; most of them in Nebraska and the Northwest Territories, but some in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Manitoba. The investigations showed that animal matter (insects) formed only 10.19 per cent of the food, while vegetable matter (seeds, fruit, and ‘ browse’) made 89.81 percent. If subsequent study proves that these figures apply generally to the species, the sharp-tailed grouse is to be classed among the birds most largely vegetarian. INSECT FOOD. The insect matter consists of bugs, 0.50 percent; grasshoppers, 4.62 percent; beetles, 2.86 percent, and miscellaneous insects, 2.21 percent in a total of 10.19 percent of the food. Vernon Bailey, of the Biological Survey, found that three birds shot by him in Idaho August 29 had eaten chiefly insects, including grasshoppers, small bugs, and small caterpillars. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway state that the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse has been known to feed on caterpillars and other insects that have been scorched by prairie fires.? The young of the sharp-tailed grouse, like those of other gallina- ceous species, are highly insectivorous. A downy chick from 1 to 3 days old, collected on June 27, in Manitoba, by Ernest Thompson Seton, had eaten 95 percent of insects and 5 percent of wild straw- aHist. N. A. Birds, Land Birds, III, p. 489, 1874. 22 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. berries. The insect material consisted of a lepidopterous chrysalis and the remains of beetles and black ants (Camponotus pennsyl- vanicus). Another young bird, about 8 days old, taken by the same collector, had been exclusively insectivorous. It had eaten such beetles as weevils, ground beetles (Harpalus herbivagus), the lady- bird (Anisosticta seriata), and the click beetle (Dolopius lateralis), also 2 cutworms, 9 sawfly larvee, such leaf hoppers as Tettegonia sp. and Helochara communis, and 1 leaf spider. The sharp-tailed grouse is fond of grasshoppers. Vernon Bailey shot 3 birds at Elk River, Minn., September 17, 1894, which had eaten, respectively, 7, 23, and 31 grasshoppers. The species is a destroyer also of the Rocky Moun- tain locust. Of 9 birds collected by Professor Aughey from May to October, inclusive, 6 had eaten 174 of these pests. The bird eats also a few crickets and, like other. gallinaceous game birds, devours the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata). It has been known to feed on the bugs Oncometopia lateralis and Oncometopia costalis. The lack of sufficient material to determine exactly the bird’s relation to insects is to be regretted, but enough is at hand to demonstrate the fact that its insect food is much like that of its relatives. VEGETABLE FOOD. The vegetable food of the sharp-tailed grouse, so far as ascertained in the laboratory, comprises weed seeds, 7.39 percent; grain, 20.50 percent; fruit, 27.68 percent; leaves, buds, and flowers, 31.07 percent, and miscellaneous vegetable food, 3.06 percent; making a total of 89.81 percent. The weed-seed element consists of the seeds of black bindweed (Polygonum convolvulvs) and other polygonums, wild sunflower (Helianthus sp.), ragweed (Ambrosia artemisicefolia), peppergrass (Lepidium), blue-eyed grass, sedge, and catchfly (Silene antirrhina). The seeds of a number of leguminous plants are eaten, including those of alfalfa. Like many other game birds, the species feeds on mast (largely acorns), including acorns of the scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea). Corn is eaten, but wheat is the favorite grain. It formed 17.21 percent of the food. A thousand kernels of wheat were sometimes found in one stomach. The sharp-tailed grouse is a great browser. It makes 31.07 percent of its food of leaves, buds, and flowers. Ernest Thompson Seton found it eating the buds of willow and birch. It feeds on the leaves of cottonwood, alder, blueberry, juniper, and larch; also leaves of quillwort (Jsoetes), vetch, dandelion, grass, and rush (Juncus). Hearne says that in winter it eats the tops of the dwarf birch and the buds of poplars. Flowers form 19.90 percent of its diet, the species 4 First Rep. U. 8. Entom. Comm., Append. II, p. 47, 1877 (1878). SAGE GROUSE. 23 leading all other birds in this respect. A half pint of the showy, bluish blossoms of the pasque flower (Pilsatilla hirsutissima) which brightens the western prairie are often taken at a meal, and those of the dandelion also are eaten. Inflorescence of grasses, alder, willow, maple, and canoe birch are plucked along with leaf buds. Like the prairie hen and the ruffed grouse, the sharp-tailed grouse is frugivorous, and fruit forms 27.68 percent of its diet. Hips of wild rose alone form 17.38 percent. Ernest Thompson Seton, who examined hundreds of stomachs of the sharp-tailed grouse, says that he can not recollect an instance in which they did not contain the stony seeds of the wild rose (2osa blanda [?]).* The Biological Sur- vey has found rose seeds in many of the stomachs examined, but in uumerous instances it has recorded their absence. The fruit of both prairie rose and the sweetbrier (2osa rubiginosa) are eaten. Mr. Seton states that in places in Manitoba where he has collected dur- ing the winter, gravel to pulverize the food is not to be had, and the stony rose seeds act in its stead. Rose hips appear difficult to digest,and, furthermore, are sometimes thickly set with bristles that would irri- tate the human stomach, but appear to cause no inconvenience to the grouse. The persistent bright-colored hips are readily seen above the snow, and they are a boon to the birds in wintry northern regions, where the struggle for existence is bitter. Other plants of the rose family furnish food for the sharp-tailed grouse, such as the thorn apple (Crategus sp.), the wild strawberry, and the wild black cherry (Prunus serotina). It feeds on blueberries and cranberries and on the snowberry (Symphoricarpus racemosus), various species of manza- nita, bearberry (Arctostaphylos wva-urst), buffalo berry (Lepargyrea argentea), juniper berries, huckleberries, and arbutus berries. It takes also the partridge berry (J/itchella repens), a favorite with the ruffed grouse. Like many other species, it eats with relish the fruit of cornel (Cornus stolonifera) and poison ivy (both Rhus radicans and Rhus diversiloba). THE SAGE GROUSE. (Centrocercus urophasianus.) With the exception of the wild turkey, the sage grouse is our largest game fowl. It is a fine-looking bird, with gray back, black breast, and long tail, and attains a maximum weight of 8 pounds. It breeds on the sagebrush plains of the Upper Sonoran and Transition zones, from the east slope of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains in Nevada, California, and British Columbia, east to Assiniboia, Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado. At mating time the cock inflates the sacs aProc. U. S. Nat. Mus. XIII, p. 519, 1890 (1891). 24 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. on the sides of his neck until they look like small oranges, and then goes through a droll performance, throwing himself forward on his breast and plowing along the ground until the breast feathers are almost completely worn away. The hen is captivated by these grotesque antics, and in due time chooses a mate and nests in a small depression in the ground under the shelter of a bush, where she lays about ten olive-buff eggs with chocolate markings. The cock leaves her before incubation begins, and in about three weeks the chicks are out. A young covey roosts in a circle on the ground, bobwhite- fashion. In winter, coveys unite in packs which sometimes number « hundred or more. FOOD HABITS. The feeding habits of the sage grouse are peculiar, and its organs of digestion are unlike those of other grouse. The stomach is not differentiated into a powerful grinding gizzard, but is a thin, weak, membranous bag, resembling the stomach of a raptorial bird. Such an organ is evidently designed for the digestion of soft food, and we find that the bulk of the sage grouse’s diet consists of leaves and tender shoots. A stomach collected September 7, 1890, in Idaho, by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, contained leaves of sage and other plants, seeds, and a ladybird beetle (Coccinellidw). Four birds shot in Wyoming during May and September by Vernon Bailey had gorged themselves with the leaves of sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata). This and other sages, including A. cana and A. frigida, furnish the bulk of the food of the sage grouse. Other food is taken, but it is comparatively insignificant. B. H. Dutcher, formerly of the Bio- logical Survey, examined a stomach which, besides sagebrush leaves, contained seeds, flowers, buds of Rhus trilobata, and ants and grass- hoppers. Three birds collected by Vernon Bailey on September 5, in Wyoming, had varied their sagebrush fare with ladybird ‘beetles, ground beetles (Carabidae), fly larve, ants, moths, grasshoppers (Welanoplus sp.), and the leaves of asters and yarrow. Of two birds killed in May, one had fed wholly on the leaves of sagebrush (Arte- mista tridentata), while the other in addition had taken insect galls from sagebrush and the flowers and flower buds of a phlox (Phlox douglasti), together with some undetermined seed capsules, pieces of moss, and several ants. A third bird, killed in July, had eaten a few plant stems and numerous grasshoppers. Major Bendire writes that the diet of the sage grouse includes grass spikes, the tops of leguminous plants, including blossoms and pods of vetch (Vicia) and astragalus; also, that the bird eats golden- rod, and will go far to get a morning feed of wheat. He notes that also berries, grasshoppers, and crickets (Anabrus simplex) are eaten.* «Life Hist. N. A. Birds, [I], pp. 107-108, 1892. PLATE Il. Bull. 24, Bioiogical Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, SAGE GROUSE (CENTROCERCUS UROPHASIANUS). RUFFED GROUSE. 25 Sage grouse have been known to eat rose hips, greasewood leaves, and the buds and foliage of the pulpy-leaved thorn.¢ The young, of course, are more highly insectivorous than their parents, A half-grown bird shot by Vernon Bailey had eaten, in addition to vegetable food, some 300 ants. Much remains to be learned about the diet of the sage grouse, but enough is known to show that the bird lives principally on sage- brush, and does no harm to agriculture. The value of the flesh as food has been much discussed, but the general opinion is that when the birds have not been feeding much upon sage the flesh is excellent. A long-continued diet of sagebrush imparts to it a bitter, sagy flavor. Hon. Theodore Roosevelt says:? However, I killed plenty of prairie chickens and sage hens for the pot, and as the sage hens were still feeding largely upon crickets and grasshoppers, and not exclusively on sage, they were just as good eating as the prairie chickens. Sage grouse should be drawn as soon as they are killed, to prevent the food in the stomach and intestines from tainting the flesh. The sage grouse is of very gentle disposition, and probably would thrive in captivity. Should it be domesticated, its size would make it a most valuable fowl. E. 8. Cameron, of Terry, Mont., writes to the Biological Survey that he has made a beginning in this direction. He secured eggs of the sage grouse, hatched them under a domestic hen, and some of the chicks survived. THE RUFFED GROUSE. (Bonasa umbellus.)¢ The ruffed grouse is widely distributed over the wooded parts of the United States and Canada, and ranges from northern Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas north to Hudson Bay and central Alaska, and from Maine to the coast of Oregon. The different conditions of environment prevailing over this great range have had their effect in modifying the colors of the ruffed grouse so that several forms may be distinguished. The color differences between the bird of the south- ern Rocky Mountains and the Oregon ruffed grouse of the humid west coast are especially marked. The latter is the most richly colored of the North American grouse, and is notable for its handsomely @ Wilson and Bonaparte, Am. Ornith., IV, p. 214, 1831. b The Wilderness Hunter, p. 99, 1893. ¢ The ruffed grouse is separable into four forms: The common bird of the Eastern States (Bonasa unbellus) ; the Canadian ruffed grouse (B. uw. togata) of the spruce forests along the northern border, from Maine to British Celum- bia; the gray ruffed grouse (B. u. wmbelloides) of the Rocky Mountains, north to Alaska; and the Oregon ruffed grouse (B. wu. sabini) of the humid west coast, from northern California to British Columbia. 6568—No. 24—05 m——_+4 26 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. contrasted black and reddish brown colors, set off by immaculate white. The ruffed grouse is one of the most highly prized of American game birds. It is known in New England as the ‘ partridge,’ but in the Southern States it is usually called ‘ pheasant.’ It is distinctly a bird of the woods, imparting the spirit of the wilderness to every sylvan retreat that it inhabits. In Virginia and Maryland, near the city of Washington, the species is, or was until recently, not uncom- mon along the rocky palisades of the Potomac and in deep gorges lined with laurel thickets. In Essex County, N. J., it frequents the crest of a wooded basaltic dike known as the Orange Mountains, where the picturesque rocky woods with a good stand of deciduous trees and an undergrowth of blueberry, second-growth white oak, wild grape and bittersweet vines, and beds of partridge berry (Mitchella repens) furnish a congenial home. That ruffed grouse usually prefer deciduous to evergreen growths was particularly no- ticed by the writer in 1892 and 1898 at Chocorua,-N. H., a hamlet between Lake Winnepesaukee and the White Mountains. On his tramps through heavy spruce forests remote from houses or clear- ings he seldom came across grouse. He frequently met them, how- ever, in woodland near farms or in clearings, and particularly along wood roads. Birds in Their Relation to Man, p. 40, 1903. c Birds of Dastern N. A., p. 858, 1881. 34 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. year and grown, and it is well fruited, owing to the budding two years iu succession. No tree could have been more entirely budded, but the grouse can not stand so as to reach the outmost terminal buds, as a rule; their weight is too great. The present investigation of stomachs revealed only an insignificant percentage of apple buds, probably because most of the grouse exam- ined were shot in places remote from orchards. The bird has been known to eat also pear and peach buds, and probably would not refuse cherry buds. From one crop, leaves of blackberry or raspberry (Rubus sp.) were taken, and bud twigs of blueberry (Vaccinium pennsylvanicum) and other species were not at.all uncommon. The twigs severed by the sharp-edged bill of the grouse are all about the same length, one-third of an inch. They appeared in the stomachs as little whitish sticks, from which digestion had removed the bark. The extent to which the ruffed grouse browses on leaves and twigs suggests an herbivorous mammal rather than a bird. The ruffed grouse feeds on leaves and buds of the mayflower (E'pigea repens), and likes exceedingly the leaves of the partridge berry. (Mfitchella repens). It nips off also leaves of both red and white clover, to the extent of 1 percent of its food. It is partial to the leaves of sheep sorrel (Rumew acetosella), which it cuts across as sharply as if by a pair of scissors, but it eats yellow sorrel (Owalis stricta) with less relish. It appears to like dandelion greens, and has a queer taste for the fronds of ferns (Dryopteris spinulosa, Botrychium obliquum, and Polypodium vulgare). In its relation to conifers it differs widely from the spruce grouse, for it derives therefrom, only an insignificant percentage of its food, while the spruce grouse obtains nearly 50 percent. Spruce needles and foliage of arborvite (Thuja oécidentalis) have been seen in several stomachs. Edward A. Samuels believes that the ruffed grouse will eat leaves of evergreens only when all other food is lacking. In Alaska, E. W. Nelson found the bird feeding exclusively on spruce buds. He states that the flesh becomes disagreeable from this pitchy diet.? The effect of highly flavored food on the flesh of game birds has already been referred to. The ruffed grouse buds the highly poisonous laurel (Halmia lati- folia). On this subject Alexander Wilson writes: °¢ During the deep snows of the winter, they have recourse to the buds of alder, and the tender buds of the laurel. I have frequently found their crops dis- tended with a large handful of these latter alone; and it has been confidently asserted, that, after having fed for some time on the laurel buds, their flesh becomes highly dangerous to eat, partaking of the poisonous qualities of the plant. «Our Northern and Eastern Birds, p. 387, 1883. > Nat. Hist. Coll. in Alaska, p. 131, 1888. ¢ Am. Ornith., vol. II, p. 319, 1831. RUFFED GROUSE. 35 Dr. John H. Brinton, of Jefferson Medical College, has known sev- eral cases of glossitis (inflammation of the tongue) caused by eating grouse that had fed on laurel,“ and Dr. N. Shoemaker has also known of serious illness from the same source. V. K. Chestnut, Department specialist on poisonous plants, gave an extract made from laurel leaves to a chicken, which he subsequently killed and fed to a cat. The cat was seriously affected, but ultimately recovered. Jn Phila- delphia in 1790 the public was alarmed over the possibilities of laurel poisoning, and the sale of these birds was for a time forbidden. Dr. B. H. Warren shot 10 birds when the ground was deeply covered with snow, and found their crops stuffed with laurel buds.° Not more than half a dozen stomachs of the 208 examined by the Biological Survey contained fragments of this plant, the explanation probably being that only a few stomachs were collected in late winter, when birds most resort to it. Four of the birds that contained laurel were used for food, with no evident ill effect. One of these had eaten 14 grams of laurel, nearly all leaves, with only a few buds. The leaves had been clipped into bits as if by scissors. Investigation of this habit of the grouse, known to be a common one, is much needed. The maple is often selected for budding, and sometimes the spicebush. Flowers are sometimes plucked by browsing grouse. Asters and red clover have been identified in their food, and the green ovary of bloodroot (Sanguinaria) was found in a bird’s crop by Amos W. Butler. The following plants also are in the list of browse of this bird: Heuchera (Heuchera americana). Meadow rue (Thalictrum sp.). Chickweed (Alsine pubera). Smilax (Smilax glauca). Catnip (NVepeta cataria). Horsetail rush (Equisetum sp.). Cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea). Azalea (Azalea sp.). Buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosa False goat’s beard (.Astilbe sp.). and R. acris). Aster (Aster sp.).- Speedwell (Teronica officinalis). Cud weed (Gnaphalium purpu- Saxifrage (Saxifraga sp.). reum). Live-forever (Sedum sp.). FRUIT. The ruffed grouse is preeminently a berry eater. Not only does it consume more fruit than the bobwhite, but it is our most frugivorous game bird. More than one-fourth of its yearly food—28.32 percent— consists of fruit, distributed as follows: 3.82 percent rose hips, 2.46 percent poison ivy and sumac, 3.01 percent grapes, and 19.03 percent miscellaneous fruits. a Warren, Birds of Penn., p. 108, 1890. tb North Am. Med. Journ., I, pp. 321-822, 1826. c Birds of Pennsylvania, p. 108, 1890. 36 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. The taste for rose hips, seedy and husky as they are, and often beset with fine bristles which irritate the human skin and would seem really dangerous to internal tissues, is one of the singular freaks of bird feeding. It reminds one of the cuckoo’s liking for caterpillars which are so bristly that its stomach becomes actually felted and sometimes pierced by the stiff hairs. Rose hips hang on the bushes throughout the winter, accessible to the hungry grouse as they journey about in the snow for food, and are usually swallowed whole. The bird likes grapes also. No less than 3.01 percent of the year’s diet consists of them, and in November they make 17.2 percent of the total food for the month. All experienced sportsmen know of this taste, and during this month they always count on getting their best shooting in the vicinity of heavily fruited grapevines. The wild grapes with small berries, such as Vitis cordifolia, are especially liked, but also large grapes are greatly relished. The species from which cultivated varieties have been derived (Vitis labrusca) appears to be commonly selected. Thirty to forty grapes are often swallowed at ameal. From this taste one might expect the grouse to commit dep- redations on cultivated grapes, but no reports of such damage have come to the Biological Survey. Like many other birds, the ruffed grouse eats the berries of sumac and other species of Rhus. This food contributes 2.46 percent of the year’s diet. Among the nonpoisonous sumacs selected are the. dwarf sumac (hus copallina), the staghorn sumac (&. hirta), and the scarlet sumac (2. glabra). Not uncommonly from 300 to 500 berries of the dwarf sumac are swallowed at a meal. This liking for the dry and apparently nonnutritious sumac is another curious freak of bird appetite. Probably, as with the bobwhite, the seeds are broken up in the gizzard and the inclosed meat, or endosperm, set free for diges- tion. The immunity of the bird from poisoning by poison sumac and poison ivy, which also it eats, is interesting. That these seeds retain their virulence after being eaten was shown in the case of an investigator in the Biological Survey who was poisoned while exam- ining stomachs of crows that had fed on poison-ivy berries. At times the ruffed grouse eats many of these berries, as proven by one col- lected by Prof. S. A. Forbes, at Jackson, Ill., December 9, 1880, which had eaten 280 of them. Where grouse are numerous, poison sumac is usually less abundant than poison ivy, and consequently it appears less frequently in stomach examinations. One hundred and sixty poison-ivy berries were taken from the crop of a ruffed grouse shot by Dr. A. K. Fisher at Lake George, N. Y., October 24, 1899. Miscellaneous fruits amount to 19.03 percent of the annual food. The two favorite kinds are the partridge berry (AMitchella repens) and the thorn apple (various species of Crategus), both of which were eaten by 40 of the 208 grouse examined. At least two species RUFFED GROUSE. awe of thorn apple are used for food—the cockspur thorn (Crategus crus- galt) and the scarlet thorn ((. coccinea). These apple-like fruits afford a nutritious food. At Peterboro, N. Y., the writer observed grouse coming to thorn-apple trees during November and well into December. That they take large numbers at a meal is shown by an individual obtained at St. Vincent, Minn., which had eaten 38. W. H. Kobbé says that grouse eat with great relish the small wild crab apple of the Northwest (Pyrus rirularis).« They enjoy culti- vated apples, seldom missing a chance at trees on the edge of wood- lands. At Chocorua, N. H., in October, 1898, some of the birds killed in old orchards of abandoned farms had fed principally on apples. After thorn apples and partridge berries, a number of other fruits are also staples. The large brilliant clusters of the mountain ash (Sorbus americana) are acceptable, and the delicious wintergreen berries, with scarlet skin and snowy pulp, are also relished. The bayberry (lyrica carolinensis) is a favorite food wherever accessible. In grouse stomachs one often finds nothing but the little round granules contained in the waxy drupes of this berry. Blueberries also are eaten in large quantities. A bird killed at Chocorua, N. H., July 25, 1892, had eaten a hundred blueberries (Vaccinium pennsylvani- cum), and one killed at Chateaugay, N. Y., in September, contained about three hundred. The high-bush blackberry and the huckle- berry also are eaten, as well as the cranberry. Dr. A. K. Fisher found 21 whole cranberries in a bird shot at Lake George, N. Y., November 2, 1901. The extent to which blackberries are sometimes eaten is shown by the fact that the stomach of a grouse contained about 800 blackberry seeds. Another bird had eaten over a hundred sarsaparilla berries. An explanation of the delicious flavor of the ruffed grouse appears in its varied and highly flavored diet of fruit, herbs, and seeds. In addition to the fruits already noted the follow- ing kinds found in the birds examined may be named, though the total number mentioned in this bulletin is probably not a fourth of the complete list of fruits eaten by this bird: Greenbrier (Smilax sp/). Hairy Solomon’s seal (Polygona- tum biflorum). Smooth Solomon’s seal (Polygona- tum commutatum). Blackberry (Rubus nigrobaccus). Black raspberry (Rubus oeciden- talis). Raspberry (Rubus strigosus). Domestic cherry (Prunus avium). - Cultivated plum (Prunus domes- tica). Wild black cherry (Prunus sero- tina). Wild red cherry (Prunus pennsyl- vanica), Elder (Sambucus canadensis). Red elder (Sambucus pubens). Black haw (Viburnum prunifo- lium). Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago). Withe rod (Viburniwm cassinoides). Maple-leaved arrow wood (Vibur- num acerifolium). @ Auk, XVII, p. 351, 1900. 38 High-bush cranberry (Viburnum opulus). Mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idea). Snowberry (Symphoricarpus sp.). Feverwort (Triostewm perfolia- tum). Black huckleberry (Gaylussacia resinosa@). Black alder (Ilex verticillata). GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis). Cornel (Cornus paniculata). Silky cornel (Cornus amonum). Pepperidge (Nyssa sylvatica). Mulberry (Morus rubra). Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens). Manzanita (Arctostaphylos sp.). Barberry (Berberis vulgaris). Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). , Flowering dogwood (Cornus flor- ida). The seeds of most of these berries pass through the digestive tract unharmed and are capable of germinating. Thus the grouse assists in planting many fruiting trees and shrubs, the heavy seeds of which must be disseminated mainly through the agency of animals that feed on them. Foop oF THE YOUNG. The young of most birds are far more insectivorous than adults, a statement that applies to gallinaceous birds, though to a less extent than to passerines. More than 95 percent of the diet of eight grouse chicks examined, none of which was more than a fourth grown, was insects. Seven adults collected in the breeding season had consumed only 30 percent of insects. Newly hatched chicks eat the largest proportion of insects. As they grow older they gradually become more frugivorous and granivorous. Three chicks, only a day or two old, collected by Prof. S. A. Forbes, at: Waukegan, Il., June 9, 1876, proved to have been exclusively insectivorous. They had eaten cutworms, grasshoppers, Lampyrid beetles, ants (Zetramorium cespitum) , parasitic wasps, buffalo tree hoppers, and spiders (Attide and Phalangidw). A grouse about a week out of the shell, collected by F. H. King, had eaten a white grub, 7 spiders (Phalangide), and 13 caterpillars.* It should be noted, therefore, that the ruffed grouse, though only slightly insectivorous when adult, as a chick destroys great numbers of insects, and deserves much more credit from farmers than it usually receives. THE SPRUCE GROUSE. (Canachites canadensis.)> The spruce, or Canada, grouse inhabits the transcontinental conif- erous forests from the northern border of the United States, east of 4Trans. Wis. Ag. Soc., vol. 24, pp. 472-473, 1886. b The spruce grouse (Canachites canadensis) is separated into three geographic forms, of which two occur within our territory; these are the common spruce grouse (C. c. canace) of the northern border from Maine to Minnesota, and the Alaska spruce grouse (C. ¢. osgoodi) of Alaska and western Canada. SPRUCE GROUSE. 39 the Rocky Mountains, to Labrador and Alaska. The male is one of the handsomest of the grouse; it is gray, with black bars above and clear black and white below, with a rusty band edging its fanlike tail. In spring brilliant red combs above the eyes add to the beauty of the strutting cock. These birds drum in an odd way: The male selects an inclined tree and flutters up the trunk for 15 to 20 feet, drumming as he goes. The spruce grouse nests in May or early June and lays from 9 to 16 buff-colored eggs, handsomely marked with rich chestnut and brown, FOOD HABITS. Study of the food habits of the spruce grouse has been but meager, since only 8 stomachs were available for examination. These were collected in January, May, August, September, October, and Novem- ber, 6 of them in Canada, 1 in Michigan, and 1 in Minnesota. The material in the stomachs consisted of 100 percent vegetable matter— 18.383 percent seeds, 19.73 percent fruit, 61.94 percent coniferous foliage. The seeds were of spruce, thistle, and several unidentifi- able plants. In its frugivorous habits the spruce grouse closely resembles its relative. the blue grouse. The proportion of bear- berries was 16.67 percent, and of other fruit 3.06 percent. Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum), blueberries (Vaccinévm), bunchberries (Cornus canadensis), crowberries (Lmpetrum), and juniper berries are among the berries principally eaten. Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Chief of the Biological Survey, has informed the writer that the spruce grouse feeds largely on the bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) and the wax currant (2ibes cerenm). When cold weather comes the spruce grouse usually abandons a berry diet and eats nothing but its favorite food—the leaves, buds, and tender shoots of conifers. This kind of browse formed 61.94 percent of the food of the eight birds examined in the laboratory. It is safe to assume that more than half the year’s food of this grouse is obtained by browsing, and that nearly half consists of the foliage of conifers. Wilson and Bonaparte state that in winter this species feeds on the shoots of spruce,* a habit so generally known that it has given to the bird its name. According to Major Bendire, this grouse feeds also on the needles of tamarack (Larix laricina), and in certain localities feeds upon them exclusively.” It has been known also to eat the needles of Pinus divaricata and the fir balsam (Abzes balsamea). As with the blue grouse, resinous food imparts to the flesh a decidedly pitchy flavor. W. H. Osgood, of the Biological Survey, informs the writer that he examined crops of the Alaska grouse which contained the leaves «Am. Ornith., vol. 4, p. 208, 1831. > Life Hist. N. A. Birds, [I], p. 52, 1892. 40 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. of blueberry (Vaccinium) and horsetail (Equisetum). The Alaska spruce grouse, according to Dr. W. H. Dall, was found at Nulato in winter feeding exclusively on the buds of willow. The flesh of the spruce grouse is dark and for the table is in no way comparable to that of the blue grouse. Nor is the bird equal to the latter as an object of sport. It is, however, a thing of beauty in the dark northern coniferous forests, where its aesthetic value must impress every lover of nature. This grouse is strictly a forest bird, and no- where appears to come into contact with agriculture. THE FRANKLIN GROUSE. (Canachites franklini.) The Franklin grouse is very similar to its near relative, the spruce grouse, and differs mainly in the conspicuous white marking on its upper tail coverts and in lacking the rufous tip to the tail. It is found in the mountains of western Montana and Idaho, westward to the coast ranges of Oregon and Washington and northward through British Columbia to southern Alaska. Major Bendire records that nidification occurs during the last of May and in June. The food habits of the bird are similar to those of the spruce grouse. In Alberta, between August 25 and September 1, 1894, J. A. Loring, a field agent of the Biological Survey, examined the crops of several Franklin grouse and found in them berries and leaves. A. H. How- ell, also of the Survey, examined crops and gizzards in Idaho during the last of September, 1895, and found in them large quantities of the leaves of the lodge-pole pine (Pinus murrayana) broken into bits from one-fourth to three-fourths of an inch long. Major Bendire notes that in summer they furnish Indians and packers with their principal supply of fresh meat. Their flesh is palatable then because they eat grasshoppers and berries and feed less freely on the buds and leaves of spruce and tamarack.? Hon. Theodore Roosevelt writes of this bird in Montana :° The mountain men call this bird the fool-hen; and most certainly it deserves the name. The members of this particular flock, consisting of a hen and her three-parts grown chicks, acted with a stupidity unwonted even for their kind. They were feeding on the ground among some young spruce, and on our approach flew up and perched in the branches, four or five feet above our heads. There they stayed, uttering a low complaining whistle, and showed not the slightest suspicion when we came underneath them with long sticks and knocked them off their perches. a Nelson, Nat. Hist. Coll. Alaska, p. 130, 1887 (1888). » Life Hist. N. A. Birds, [1], p. 58, 1892. ¢ The Wilderness Hunter, p. 116, 1893. . DUSKY GROUSE. 41 THE DUSKY GROUSE. (Dendragapus obscurus. ja The dusky, or blue, grouse lives mainly in coniferous forests of the western mountain ranges, occurring in the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, north to Canada and Alaska, and west to the Pacific coast. These grouse are large, plainly colored birds, mainly of a slaty or dusky shade. In unfrequented forests they are so unsophisticated that they often perch on a low branch and gaze curiously at an intruder until struck by a stone or stick. From their unsuspicious nature they are known in parts of the West, like the previous species, as fool-hens. While commonly habitants of the higher forests, they often descend to lower levels on the mountain sides where deciduous trees and bushes mingle with the conifers. The dusky grouse is a valuable food bird and weighs from 2} to 34 pounds. Wilbur C. Knight says: ® Of all the edible birds of the west this and the following variety [Richard- son’s grouse] are the most desirable. The flesh is highly flavored, tender, juicy, and as white as that of a tame fowl. . The flavor of a game bird’s flesh is often affected by the character of its diet, as is the case with the blue grouse after it has been feeding on the pitchy foliage of conifers. ‘“ The use of such food imparts to the flesh of these birds,” says Major Bendire, “a strong resinous flavor, not particularly relished by me at first.”° Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, however, state that the pine taste only improves the bird’s gamy fiavor.¢ Vernon Bailey states that half-grown young of the blue grouse which had been feeding largely on gooseberries were excellent eating, being entirely free from pitchiness. George B. Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream, notes that a diet of a small species of.red whortleberry also makes the flesh delicious.¢ As an object of sport the blue grouse is in the front rank of game- birds, even though it spends much time in the deep coniferous for- ests. It lies well to the dog, flies swiftly, and affords shots in heavy timber that test the sportsman’s highest skill. eIn addition to the common dusky grouse (Dendragapus obscurus) of the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico to Montana, three other geographic forms are known. These are the sooty grouse (D. 0. fuliginosus) of the northwest coast, from California to southern Alaska ; Richardson grouse (D. 0. richard- sont), from Montana to northwestern British America; and the Sierra dusky grouse (D. 0. sierre) of the Sierra Nevada in California and east slope of Cas- eade Mountains in Oregon. bd Birds of Wyoming, p. 54, 1902. e Auk, vol. 6, p. 33, 1889. a Hist. N. A. Birds, vol. 3, pp. 424-425, 1874. e Forest and Stream, yol. 12, p. 365, 1879. 42 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. The dusky grouse cock is quite uniformly dark in color, as the name implies. In the mating season the bird presents a striking appearance: The brilliant comblike wattles above its eyes are con- spicuous, the large, yellow wind sacs on the sides of its neck are fully inflated, and it struts about like a turkey cock, with drooping wings and spreading tail, emitting a sound that closely resembles the hoot- ing of the great horned owl. The nesting takes place during the last half of May, when the hen bird scratches a slight hollow in the earth and lays from 6 to 12 cream-colored, brown-spotted eggs. Usually but one brood is reared in a season. Prof. W. W. Cooke, in writing of the habits of the species in Colorado, says that it breeds from 7,000 feet altitude to timber line, 4,000 feet higher. At the former altitude. it lays about the middle of May. In August the birds gather in flocks and visit grainfields, or frequent the more open gulches and foothills for berries. In September they wander above timber line to feed on grasshoppers, reaching an altitude of 12,500 feet. In severe winter weather some of the birds come down into the thick , woods, but many remain the whole year close to timber line. FOOD HABITS. The food habits of the dusky grouse have been studied by examina- tion of the contents of 45 crops and stomachs, representing every month of the year except May, June, and November. Most of the birds were shot in British Columbia, Colorado, and Idaho, but a few came from Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and California. The food consisted of 6.73 percent animal matter—insects, with an occasional spider—and 93.27 percent of vegetable matter—seeds, fruit, and leaves. Grasshoppers constitute the bulk of the animal food, amount- ing to 5.73 percent. Beetles, ants, end caterpillars form the rest of the insect food. One stomach contained the common land snail (Polygyra sp.). Major Bendire, Vernon Bailey, and Walter K. Fisher have shown that the young birds feed largely on grasshoppers. Mr. Fisher shot a young bird at Forest Grove, Oreg., July 6, 1897 ; which had eaten 20 grasshoppers and several smooth, green larve. VEGETABLE Foon. The dusky grouse and its near relative, the spruce grouse, -are among our chief foliage-eating birds. Browse is eaten by the blue grouse to the extent of 68.19 percent of its annual food, and is dis- tributed as follows: Buds and twigs, 5.28 percent; coniferous foliage, 54.02 percent; other leaves, 8.89 percent. The species spends most of «Birds of Colorado, p. 70, 1897. DUSKY GROUSE. 43 its time in pine forests feeding on needles, buds, and flowers. The yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa)—male flowers, the white fir (Ab/es concolor), Abies magnifica, the Douglas fir (Pse udotsuga mucronata) , the western hemlock (Z'suga heterophylla), and the black hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) are among the trees that afford it subsistence. That the blue grouse thus utilizes the foliage of conifers is well known to everybody familiar with the bird. Major Bendire writes that dur- ing the winter its food consists almost wholly of the buds and tender “tops of pine and fir branches, refuse bits of which sometimes accu- mulate under a single tree to the amount of a-bushel.2. A blue grouse shot by W. W. Price at Slippery Ford, Cal., when 15 feet of snow lay on a level, had filled its crop with the young leaves of the white fir. Plants other than conifers furnish 14.17 percent of the annual food of the species. This material includes red clover leaves, willow leaves, blueberry leaves, miterwort (Jl/étella breweri), birch shoots, and poplar flower buds. During July, in Montana and Utah, field agents of the Biological Survey have seen the bird feeding on the leaves, buds, and flowers of the Mariposa lily (Cualochortus). It eats also the blossoms of lupine, columbine, and the Indian paint brush (Castilleja). The blue grouse is only slightly granivorous. Its seed food amounts to but 4.99 percent of the whole—a proportion small indeed when compared with that of the bobwhite and the crested quails. The species is said by Alexander Wilson to resort to seeds only when other food is scarce.° At times it visits fields for oats and other grain. It feeds also on pine seeds (Pinus flewilis and other species). It picks up polygonum seeds (P. polymorphum and others), is fond of wild sunflower seeds, and has been known to sample false sunflower (Wye- thia mollis), caraway (Glycosma occidentalis), and the capsules of Pentstemon gracilis. It picks up also the seeds of various species of lupine, ‘and is fond of acorns, including those of the canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis) . The blue grouse is one of the most highly frugivorous of our gal- linaceoug birds. Fruit formed 20.09 percent of the food of the 45 birds whose stomachs were examined in the laboratory. Manzanita berries constituted a large part, amounting to 13.48 percent of the total. During the summer and early fall they were eaten in great quantities. The manzanita often forms tangled areas of chaparral and includes a number of species which furnish birds and mammals an abundant supply of berries. The berries eaten by the blue grouse « Auk, vol. 6, p. 33, 1889. » Condor, vol. 8, p. 160, 1901. c Am. Ornith., vol. 4, p. 191, 1831. 44 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. include Arctostaphylos pungens, A. nevadensis, and A. uva-ursi. Its list of fruits also includes the following: Mountain twin berry. Service berry (Amelanchier alni- Red elder (Sambucus pubens). folia). Honeysuckle (Lonicera involu- Salal (Gaultheria shallon). crata; Lonicera conjugialis). Huckleberry (Vaccinium occiden- Cherry (Prunus sp.). tale). Mountain ash (Sorbus sambuci- Currant (Ribes cereum, Ribes san- -folia). guineum). Salmon berry (Rubus parviflorus). Gooseberry (Ribes menz viesis); G The food habits of all young birds differ more or less from those of their parents. Young blue grouse at first live chiefly on grass- hoppers and other insects and on tender plant tops. Later in the sea- son they subsist on berries, such as gooseberries and salal-berries, and some seeds, such as those of the wild sunflower. Florence Merriam Bailey, in writing recently of the habits of the dusky grouse in New Mexico, says: Near our camp at the foot of Pecos Baldy, Mr. Bailey discovered a winter roosting tree of the grouse. The tree was on a sheltered part of the wooded slope and was so densely branched that after a prolonged rain the ground beneath was perfectly dry. The earth was strewn with winter droppings, com- posed entirely of the leaves of conifers. Conifer needles had also been eaten by three of the grouse that were taken * * * in July and August, but at this season the birds were living principally on such fresh food as strawberries, bearberries (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), sheperdia berries, flowers of the lupine and paint brush, seeds, green leaves, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, and other insects. One crop contained twenty-seven strawberries, twenty-eight bear- berries, and twelve sheperdia berries, besides flowers, leaves, and insects, while the accompanying gizzard was filled with seeds, green leaves, and insects. THE WILLOW PTARMIGAN. (Lagopus lagopus.) Ptarmigans are characteristic of the arctic and arctic-alpine wegions. During summer they are mainly gray and brown, resem- bling the mottled colors of the bare earth, but at the approach of winter they change this plumage for one of pure white. Thus they harmonize with their surroundings at all seasons and are better able to escape their numerous enemies. There are four species of these birds in the United States and Alaska. Of these the willow ptarmigan, white ptarmigan, or willow grouse, as it is variously known, is the largest, most abundant, and consequently the most important. It is found in the arctic regions of both hemispheres, and is widely spread and abundant throughout the tundra country of Alaska, except on the Aleutian Islands. Throughout its range, especially in winter, it is an important food bird. In the north @ Auk, vol. 21, p. 351, 1904. WILLOW PTARMIGAN. 45 periods of famine are ever recurring among the natives, and these birds ifrequently stand between them and starvation. It rears but one brood in a season, nesting on the ground early in June and laying from 7 to 12 eggs. By the middle of August the young are nearly grown. In the northern part of its range the willow ptarmigan is a summer resident only, and at the approach of winter most of the birds migrate in large flocks, sometimes numbering a thousand or more, southward or inland to a region of scattered trees or bushes. Ernest Thompson Seton, quoting from Hutchins’ manuscript con- cerning observations at Hudson Bay in 1782, says that over 10,000 ptarmigans were caught with nets at Severn from November to April.« The birds are so tame, especially in winter, that their cap- ture is easy. Like all other gallinaceous birds, ptarmigans require gravel for milling their food, and in winter deep snow makes this hard to procure. The natives, taking advantage of the birds’ neces- sities, bait their nets with gravel, and sometimes catch as many as 300 at one spring of a net.? E. W. Nelson writes of encountering flocks of several thousand white ptarmigans in Alaska in midwinter, and says that the whirring of their wings as they rose sounded like the roll of thunder and seemed to shake the ground. He reports that the birds are snared and shot in great numbers by both the Alaskan Eskimos and the Indians.° The flesh is not so palatable as that of many other game birds, and is decidedly dry and often bitter when the bird feeds on willow buds. The flesh of old birds is dark colored, but that of the young is white and delicately flavored. FOOD HABITS. ‘Study of the food of the willow ptarmigan unfortunately has been slight, for only five birds were available. Their food was entirely vegetable. Three shot in January in Labrador had eaten 10 percent of berries and 90 percent of buds, more than half the buds being willow. One stomach contained about 300 willow-flower buds. The two'other birds were collected in December in Labrador and had eaten willow buds exclusively. Though the data are so scanty, the results agree with those of other students. Ludwig Kumlien, for instance, says: ? They [willow ptarmigans] are quite common in the larger valleys, where there is a ranker growth of willows. The stomachs of those I examined of this species contained willow buds and small twigs. aProc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 13, p. 514, 1890. » Hearne, Journey to the Northern Ocean, pp. 413-415, 1795. e Nat. Hist. Coll. in Alaska, Dp. 132, 1887 (1888). @ Bull. 15, U. S. Nat. Mus., pp. 82-83, 1879. 46 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway have stated that the crops of ptar- migans were often found to contain a double handful of willow buds." L. M. Turner writes thus of the bird in Alaska :? During the winter these birds subsist on the past year’s twigs of willow and calder or other bushes. I have cut open the crops of many of these winter-killed birds and found them to contain only pieces of twigs about one-third of an inch long, or just about the width of the gape of the posterior horny part of the bill, as though this had been the means of measurement in cutting them off. The flesh at this time is dry and of a peculiar taste. In spring the ptarmigans con- gregate in great numbers on the willow bushes and eat the tender, swelling buds. The flesh then acquires a bitter but not unpleasant taste. As open weather advances they find berries that have remained frozen the entire winter, and tender grass shoots, and later, insects. The young are insectivorous to a great degree in their youngest days. They consume great numbers of spiders that are to be found on the warm hillsides. In writing of the food of the willow grouse, Major Bendire says that the buds and tender leaves of birch are eaten, and the berries of cranberry, whortleberry, and arbutus.© Wilson and Bonaparte state that it feeds on berries, including the crowberry (EZ’mpetrum nigrum) and the mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idea) 4 THE ROCK PTARMIGAN. (Lagopus rupestris.) ¢ The rock ptarmigan inhabits arctic America from Labrador to Alaska (including the entire Aleutian chain, where the willow ptar- migan is unknown). It is similar to the latter bird, but smaller and has a black line from the bill to the eye by which it may readily be distinguished. This bird is less common than the willow ptarmigan and prefers more rocky and elevated situations. Owing to.its smaller size and fewer numbers it is far less important to the people of the north as an article of food than the willow ptarmigan. i FOOD HABITS. ts No stomachs of the rock ptarmigan have been available for exami- nation. In Alaska, during May, E. W. Nelson found it feeding on berries of the preceding season.‘ Major Bendire says that the sub- @ Hist. N. A. Birds, Land Birds, III, p. 461, 1874. > Nat. Hist. Alaska, p. 153, 1886. ¢ Life Hist. N. A. Birds, [I], p. 74, 1892. ¢d Am. Ornith., IV, p. 328, 1831. e Besides the typical Lagopus rupestris of arctic America, the rock ptarmi- gans of North America include the Reinhardt ptarmigan (L. r. reinhardi), of Greenland and northern Labrador; the Welch ptarmigan (L. welchi), of New- foundland; and four forms found in the Aleutian Islands—L. r. nelsoni, L. r. atkhensis, L. r. townsendi, and L. evermanni. Re f Nat. Hist. Coll, Alaska, p. 136, 1887 (1888). WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN. 47 species Lagopus rupestris reinhardi feeds on insects, leaves, berries, including the crowberry (Z’mpetrum nigrum), tender leaves of the dwarf birch and white birch, willow buds, and sorrel. Samuel Hearne notes that the rock ptarmigan eats the buds and tops of the dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa).» WKumlien examined a crop that was crammed with sphagnum moss.¢ THE WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN. (Lagopus leucurus.) The white-tailed ptarmigan is found above timber line in Alaska, in the mountains of British Columbia, and in the higher Cascades south to Mounts Hood and Jefferson. It ranges south along the Rocky Mountains through Colorado to northern New Mexico. Unlike the other species, this ptarmigan has no black feathers in the tail. Writing of this bird in Colorado, W. W. Cooke says that it breeds above timber line, virtually. under arctic conditions, and that only in most severe winters does it descend into timber. He records that it breeds at from 11,500 to 18,500 feet altitude, and wanders up to the summits of peaks 1,000 feet higher. Nesting takes place early in June and is similar to that of other ptarmigans. In winter, when the birds descend to lower altitudes, the sexes are in different flocks. The white-tailed ptarmigan is a trusting creature, lacking the fear necessary: for self-prescrvation. Clark P. Streator, while employed by the Biological Survey in the Cascade Mountains of Washington, reported that one could approach within 10 feet of it, that miners killed it with stones, and that it was very good for food. In Colorado public sentiment is strongly in its favor, and it is protected by an absolutely prohibitory law. The ptarmigan is one of the sights pointed out to tourists in the Colorado mountains. Its status here may be contrasted with that of the willow grouse in the north, where thousands are killed by Eskimos and Indians. Killing birds for food, however, even by wholesale, has its excuse, but whole- sale slaughter for millinery purposes, such as has overtaken the ptarmigans in the Old World, is unpardonable. A single shipment of ptarmigan wings in Russia consisted of 10 tons.¢ FOOD HABITS. During winter in Colorado, according to Professor Cooke, thev subsist, like other ptarmigan, largely on willow buds. The stomachs «Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, [TI], p. 80, 1892. b Journey to Northern Ocean, p. 416, 1795. ce Bull. 15, U. S. Nat. Mus., p. 83, 1879. @ Engelhardt, A Russian Province of the North, 1899. 48 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. of two birds collected at Summitville, Colo., in January, 1891, at an altitude of 13,000 feet, were found to contain bud twigs from one- third to one-half inch long, but the kind of bush from which they came could not be determined. Doctor Coues, quoting T. M. Trippe, states that the food of this bird is insects, leguminous flowers, and the buds and leaves of pines and firs. According to Major Bendire, the flowers and leaves of marsh marigold (Caltha leptosepala) and the leaf buds and catkins of the dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa) are eaten.” Dr. A. K. Fisher examined the stomachs of two downy chicks collected on Mount Rainier, Washington, and found beetles and flowers of heather (Casstope mertensiana) and those of a small blueberry. THE WILD TURKEY. , (Meleagris gallopavo.) ¢ The wild turkey, our biggest game bird, was formerly abundant over a wide area. It has been exterminated throughout much of its former range, and unless radical measures are taken it will become extinct in a few years. In early colonial days it was numerous in Massachusetts, coming about the houses of the settlers in large flocks. It is now totally extinct in New England. It is hard to realize that at the beginning of the nineteenth century turkeys were so abundant that they sold for 6 cents apiece, though the largest ones, weighing from 25 to 30 pounds, sometimes brought a quarter of a dollar. A big wild turkey nowadays would not long go begging at $5. It is their value as food that has made it worth while to hunt turkeys to the very point of extermination. So-called sports- men go out in the late summer ostensibly to shoot squirrels, but really to pot turkeys on the roost. Another practice is to lie in ambush and lure the game by imitating the call note of the hen in spring. The writer has personal knowledge of such methods of hunting in Vir- ginia and Maryland, and they are largely responsible for the exter- mination now imminent. Trapping turkeys in pens—a very simple matter—has also accelerated the destruction of the species. William Brewster found the turkey breeding in North Carolina among the conifers at 5,000 feet altitude, and also in the hardwoods at low altitudes. Edward A. Preble, of the Biological Survey, dis- @ Birds of the Northwest, p. 427, 1874. - b Life Hist. N. A. Birds, [I], pp. 85-86, 1892. ¢ The typical Meleagris gallopavo is restricted to Mexico; but four geographic races have been recognized within the United States. These are the wild tur- key of the Eastern States and the Mississippi Valley (Meleagris gallopavo sil- vestris) ; the Florida turkey (M. g. osceola); the Rio Grande turkey (M. g. intermedia) ; and the Merriam turkey of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and the table-land of northern Mexico (1M. g. merriami). WILD TURKEY. 49 covered a turkey’s nest, in June, 1893, in Somerset County, Pa., which contained 14 eggs. William Lloyd states that the Texas turkey breeds twice a year. He found a nest, May 29, containing 8 eggs. The chicks, like those of the tame turkey, are very delicate, and are especially sensitive to wet. Audubon says that during wet weather they are fed by their mothers with the buds of spice bush, much as human youngsters are dosed with quinine. When the chicks are 2 weeks old they fly up and roost on low branches with their mother. At this age they have weathered most of their early perils. During the last of December, 1902, along the Roanoke River, near the North Carolina line, the writer found turkeys in typical turkey country. Few of the plantations here are under a thousand acres, and many include three or four thousand. Along the river are low lands, often flooded during high water. Several hundred yards far- ther back is a bluff, the old river terrace, which marks the beginning of the uplands.