should be actively put into operation by those most interested in the preservation of game-the sportsmen.

The prairie chicken is valuable not only as game, but as an efficient destroyer of farm pests, and any farmer would profit by having these birds reared on his place. Almost 15 per cent of the bird's food consists of weed seeds, including those of such pests as foxtail grass, smartweeds, and ragweed. More than 10 per cent of the diet consists of rose hips. A few other fruits are eaten and more than a fourth of the food consists of leaves, flowers, and shoots, collectively known as browse. The prairie chicken eats a great deal of grain, but takes most of it from stubble. The bird is fond of such mast as hazelnuts and acorns.

Nearly 15 per cent of the bird's food consists of insects, the bulk of them being grasshoppers. Almost every kind of grasshopper, locust, or cricket appears to be acceptable, and nearly 20 different kinds were identified from the stomachs. The prairie chicken made itself especially useful during the destructive invasions of the Rocky Mountain locust. Sixteen birds examined at that time were found to have eaten 866 locusts. Among other pests eaten by this species are the Colorado potato beetle, 12-spotted cucumber beetle, sugarbeet leaf-beetle, May beetles, cotton worm, army worm, cutworms, the yellow bear caterpillar, and chinch bug.-W. L. M.

CALIFORNIA QUAIL.
(Lophortyx californica.)

The California quail (fig. 2) is common and generally distributed over the States west of the Sierra, except at the higher altitudes, and is especially abundant in the fruit-raising sections. Like the bobwhite of the East, this quail never goes far from cover, and it delights to dwell on unimproved land where trees and chaparral alternate with small areas of open ground. In settled regions it is somewhat. domestic in habits and soon becomes accustomed to living in orchards, gardens, and cultivated grounds. The writer has seen a female sitting upon her eggs in a garden within 30 feet of a house, between which and the nest carriages and foot passengers passed many times each day. In winter a covey frequently feeds with the farmer's chickens, and if not disturbed will continue to do so until pairing time.

The natural food of the quail consists of the seeds of the vast number of plants known as weeds, with a little foliage of the same, especially in winter, when the leaves are young and tender. Considering how small is the amount of fruit usually found in the stomach of this bird, it is a surprise to learn that it sometimes does serious damage to vineyards. Investigation, however, shows that, as in most other similar cases, the injury results only when too many birds gather

in a limited area. Nearly all the complaints against the quail for eating fruit are that it visits vineyards in immense numbers and eats grapes. When thousands visit a vineyard, even if only occasionally, and each bird eats or spoils at least one grape, the result is disastrous. An observer states that he once saw a flock of about 1,000 quail

eating Zinfandel grapes in a vineyard in the central part of the State, and another says that in southern California he has seen as many as 5,000 feeding upon Muscat grapes. In the writer's interviews with California fruit growers, only one mentioned the quail as harmful. His ranch was situated along the hills on the side of a narrow valley, adjacent to wild grazing land with much chaparral and forest, among which the quail lived. In this case the annual loss was estimated at 2 or 3 tons of grapes.

In the laboratory investigation of the food of the California quail 619 stomachs were examined. They were collected in every month except May, but only one was obtained in March. The other months are well represented. Animal food, principally insects, amounts to but 3 per cent, and most of this was found in the stomachs of young birds, mere broodlings. Vegetable food amounts to 97 per cent and consists mainly

of seeds of plants most of which are of noxious or troublesome species.

Animal food.-Ants appear to be a favorite food. They were found in 82 stomachs, and were eaten by adults as well as by young. They amount, however, to less than 1 per cent of the whole diet. The rest of the animal food aggregates a little more than 2 per cent and is distributed as follows: Beetles in 30 stomachs, bugs (Hemiptera) in 38, caterpillars in 11, grasshoppers in 7, flies in 2, spiders in 6, millepeds in 1, and snails in 2. The most interesting point in this connection was the stomach of a broodling only 3 or 4 days old. Besides several adult Hemiptera, some ants, caterpillars, and spiders, and a few seeds, it contained 280 minute insects, which constituted 76 per cent of the stomach's contents, and were identified as an immature form of species of scale, Phenacoccus helianthi.

In this connection the following extract from a letter dated at Los Angeles, Cal., October 28, 1908, by Dr. W. G. Chambers to the Secretary of Agriculture, is interesting:

Last May during the hatching season one of my female quail died a week prior to completing the hatch. An incandescent light of 8 candlepower was substituted, the result being 15 baby quail, very wild at first, not understanding human sounds or language, but finally becoming as docile as pet chickens. They were raised in my back yard, running at large after the first week.

A number of Marguerite bushes which grow in profusion in the yard were so infested with black scale that I had decided to uproot them and had postponed doing so as the little quail worked so persistently among the branches; upon investigation I discovered them eating the scale and twittering happily; they would swallow the fully developed scale and thoroughly clean the branches of all those undeveloped.

The young in the first week of life eat animal matter to the extent of from 50 to 75 per cent of the food, but by the time they are 4 weeks old they take little if any more animal food than the adults.

Vegetable food. The vegetable part of the quail's food may be divided into fruit, grain, seeds, and forage. Fruit appeared in 106 stomachs and aggregates 2.3 per cent of the yearly diet. It was distributed as follows: Grapes in 7 stomachs, prunes in 9, apples in 3, rubus (blackberry or raspberry) in 4, olive in 1, elderberry in 21, snowberry in 8, Manzanita in 2, huckleberry in 11, and rose haws in 3. Pulp and skins, identified as fruit only, were found in 27 stomachs, and unknown seeds, probably those of some small fruit or berry, occurred in 10 stomachs. It is evident that the percentage of any one of the above is insignificant. Stomach examination throws no new light upon the quail's grape-eating habits, except to show that the ravages complained of are exceptional. That fruit does not constitute any important part of the bird's annual food is clearly proved.

37181°-Bull. 497-12- -2

Grain was found in 133 stomachs and constitutes 6.4 per cent of the food. It was distributed as follows: Corn in 14 stomachs, wheat in 15, oats in 13, barley in 89, and rye in 2. The principal complaints against the quail on the score of grain eating are that flocks sometimes visit newly sown fields and eat large quantities of the seed. Walter E. Bryant says on this point:

Two males which I shot one evening as they were going to roost for the night after having been feeding on a newly sown field contained the following, mainly in the crop: (a) Two hundred and ten whole grains of barley, 6 pieces of broken barley, 3 grains of "cheat," and 1 of wheat, besides a few barley hulls, some clover leaves, and alfilaria; (b) 185 whole grains of barley, 5 broken pieces, 4 grains of "cheat," and 2 of wheat; also barley hulls, clover, and alfilaria. The flock numbered nearly or quite 20 birds.' Only one report accuses the bird of eating grain from the harvest field. Mr. W. T. Craig, of San Francisco, writing to the United States Department of Agriculture, says:

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.

Stomach examination does not indicate any month in which grain is eaten in excess of other food. January shows the highest percentage, 12.4, but November is nearly as high, while December, although between the two, shows less than 3 per cent. A little more than 3 per cent was eaten in February, and none at all in March and April, though the newly sown grain would be accessible in one at least of these months. June and July, the harvest months, show, respectively, 4.1 per cent and 10.7 per cent. In fact the stomach record plainly indicates that the quail does not make special search for grain, but being naturally a seed eater takes grain when it comes in the way.

The seeds of a multitude of plants which have no apparent useful function except to increase by their decay the deposit of humus in the soil constitute the staff of life of the quail. In this particular investigation they aggregate 62.5 per cent of the food of the year. They appear in stomachs taken in every month and reach a good percentage in each, the only months that show much diminution in quantity being January, February, March, and April, when new forage partly replaces seeds. The percentage is highest in June, 85.9, but shows no great falling off from July to December, inclusive. Seventy-three kinds of seeds were identified, at least generically, and more than half of them were determined specifically. Many more were ground up so as to be unrecognizable.

Bur thistle, lupines, bur clover, and turkey mullein appear to be the favorite seeds; that the others are not distasteful is shown by the quantities found in some stomachs. For instance, mayweed was identified in oly 27 stomachs, yet one stomach contained at least 2,000 of these seeds; pigweed (Chenopodium) in but 11, yet 1 con

1 Zoe, IV, pp. 55-56, 1893-94.

tained 1,000. One stomach held 83 kernels of barley, 592 seeds of geranium, 560 of tarweed, 40 of bur thistle, 48 of clover, 80 of alfilaria, 704 of timothy, 32 of catchfly, and 5 of snowberry, or 2,144 seeds in all. Another contained 1,696 geranium seeds, 14 bur thistle, 24 knotweed, 14 tarweed, 38 bur clover, 148 alfilaria, 12 ray grass, and 1 unknown seed, and a pod of uncertain origin-in all, 1,947 seeds and a pod. In both cases the contents of the crop is included with that of the stomach or gizzard. These samples indicate considerable variety in the quail's diet, even in one meal.

Grass and other forage constitute a little over 25 per cent of the quail's annual food. Forage amounts to less than 1 per cent in June, remains about the same until October, and increases somewhat in November. In January it becomes important, and it reaches nearly 60 per cent of the food for the next four months. The maximum, 85 per cent, occurs in March; but this percentage, based on only one stomach, can not be considered final. Seeds and forage are practically complementary to each other; that is, as one increases the other decreases. June, which shows the least forage, has the largest percentage of seeds. Leaves of red and of bur clover and of alfilaria were the favorite kinds, and in some cases constituted the whole. stomach contents. Blades of grass are frequently taken. A few bits of acorn, and perhaps other nuts, were eaten, but the quantity is insignificant.

Summary. From the above analysis of the food of the California quail it is apparent that under normal conditions the farmer and fruit grower have nothing to fear from its ravages. When, however, large areas of chaparral land are cleared and brought under cultivation, it is natural that the products of garden and vineyard should be eaten to a greater or less extent by quail, which abound in such localities. On the other hand, its seed-eating record is in its favor. Usually there is little difficulty in getting rid of a superfluity of game birds; in fact, in most cases the trouble is to prevent their extermination. This is strikingly illustrated by the fact that, in order to restock its depleted covers, an attempt is now being made in southern California to import quail from the peninsula of Lower California. A bird so large, so easily trapped, so valuable for food, and withal one whose pursuit affords such excellent sport as the valley quail, will rarely become numerous enough to do serious damage, and then only locally and under unusual conditions. When such conditions arise, a reduction of numbers is the easiest and simplest cure. Permits to trap

quail on one's own premises are obtainable in California on application to the State fish commissioner. After the birds have been sufficiently reduced they can be kept within reasonable limits by a moderate amount of shooting in the proper season.-F. E. L. B.