[63]Colinus virginianus.
[63]Colinus virginianus.
Any bushy fence row serves as a retreat for its nest, or for winter shelter, and weed-covered fields are its favorite feeding places. Weed seeds form more than half the total food and include those of all the worst weed pests of the farm. Among them may be mentioned crab, cockspur, witch, and foxtail grasses, sheep sorrel, smartweed, bindweed, lamb’s-quarters, pigweeds, corn cockle, chickweed, charlock, partridge pea, beggar lice, nail grass, rib grass, ragweed, and Spanish needles.
Acorns, beechnuts, chestnuts, and pine seeds make up about 2.5 per cent of the food, and wild fruit about 10 per cent The fruits include berries of palmetto, smilax, wax myrtle, mulberry, sassafras, blackberries and raspberries, rose haws, cherry, sumac, grapes, sour gum, blueberries, honeysuckle, partridgeberry, and a number of others. The bobwhite feeds to a slight extent upon buds and leaves, including those of yellow and red sorrel, cinquefoil, and clover.
Grain forms scarcely more than a sixth of the food, and most of it is taken during winter and early spring when nothing but waste grain is available The habit of gleaning this after the harvest is beneficial to the farm, for volunteer grain is not desirable, especially where it serves to maintain certain insect and fungus pests. Although most of the grain and seed crops grown upon the farm are represented in bobwhite’s dietary, no significant damage can be attributed to the bird.
Animal food, chiefly insects, composed nearly a sixth of the bird’s subsistence. From June to August, inclusive, when insects are most numerous, their proportion in the food is about 36 per cent. The variety of insect food is great and includes a number of the most destructive agricultural pests. Among them may be mentioned the Colorado potato beetle, 12-spotted cucumber beetle, bean leaf beetle, squash ladybird, wire-worms. May beetles, corn billbugs, clover-leaf weevil, army worm, boilworm, cutworms, and chinch bug.
The food habits of the bobwhite undoubtedly are beneficial and the bird should be maintained in numbers on every farm. This is not to say that all shooting should be prohibited, for the bird is very prolific. But its numbers should not be reduced below what the available nesting sites and range will support. On the other hand the policy of absolute protection recently adopted by one of the States is not called for by strictly economic considerations.
ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUREWHEN THIS PUBLICATION WAS LAST PRINTED
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1935For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C.Price 5 cents
Transcriber NotesAll illustrations were moved so as to not split paragraphs. There does not appear to be a footnote numbered “2”, therefore, the one numbered “3” and all following footnote numbers were decremented by 1.
Transcriber Notes
All illustrations were moved so as to not split paragraphs. There does not appear to be a footnote numbered “2”, therefore, the one numbered “3” and all following footnote numbers were decremented by 1.