American Bob Whites and Quails (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from American Bob Whites and QuailsAmong the game birds of the world there are not a few instances where the male of the species assists in incubation. In the case of our bob-whites, Wilson, the ornith ologist, did not appear to know, in so far as we can judge from his published writings, that the male quail assisted in the matter of incubation. Audubon knew about it, and says in his great work that The female prepares a nest composed of grasses, arranged in a circular form, leaving an entrance not unlike that of a common oven. It is placed at the foot of a tuft of rank grass (see Fig. 2) or some closed stalks 'of corn, and is partly sunk in the ground. The eggs are from ten to eighteen, rather sharp at the smaller end and of a pure white. The male at times assists in hatching them. This very indiffer ent description will probably stand pretty well for one case in several hundred, and it would appear that Audubon met with but few nests of this species in his rambles. He reserved most of the space that he devoted to the life-history of this famous little game bird, to describe the capture of it by driving bevies of them into nets. This practice 'seemed to amuse him very much indeed, as it might the average market-man today, were quails plenty enough for them to resort to it.This is what Audubon says on this point when endeavoring to describe the note of the bob-white: A fancied similarity to the words 'bob-white' renders this call familiar to the sportsman and farmer, but these notes are always preceded by another, easily heard at a distance of thirty or forty yards. The three together resemble the words 'ah, Bob White.' The first note is a kind of asperation, and the last is very loud and clear. This whistle is seldom heard after the breed ing season, during which an imitation of the peculiar note of the female, will make the male ¿y toward the sportsman who may then easily shoot it.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.