Home › R › Range (Eastern North America) (II)
Range (Eastern North America) (II)
Eastern North America, from southern Maine and Minnesota southward to the Gulf of Mexico; resident wherever found. Washington, common P. R. Sing Sing, common P. R. Cambridge, common P. R. Nest, on the ground, in grassy fields. Eggs, ten to eighteen, white, 1.20 x 95.
Taking the Old-World species of the genera Coturnix and Caccabis as the types respectively of Quails and Partridges, neither of these latter names can properly be applied to our Colinus, which should therefore be known under the distinctive title Bob-white. During the nesting season Bob-whites are distributed in pairs through clearings and cultivated fields. The members of a brood constitute a bevy or covey, though occasionally two families or broods are found in one bevy. In the fall they frequent grain fields, but as winter approaches draw in toward thickets and wooded bottom-lands, sometimes passing the coldest weather in boggy alder swamps. They roost on the ground, tail to tail, with heads pointing outward; a bunch of closely huddled forms-a living bomb whose explosion is scarcely less startling than that of dynamite manufacture.
Like most grass-inhabiting birds whose colors harmonize with their surroundings, Bob-whites rely on this protective resemblance to escape detection, and take wing only as a last resort. Sometimes they take refuge in trees, but usually they head for wooded cover, where they remain if the growth is dense, but if it is open they generally run the moment they touch the ground.
About May 1 they begin to pair, and rival males may then be seen battling for mates like diminutive gamecocks.
The name "Bob-white" originated in the spring call of the male. Mounting a fence or ascending to the lower branches of a tree, he whistles the two clear musical, ringing notes Bob-white! Sometimes they are preceded by a lower one which can be heard only when one is near the singer.
After the breeding season, when the birds are in bevies, their notes are changed to what sportsmen term "scatter calls." Not long after a bevy has been flushed and perhaps widely scattered, the members of the disunited family may be heard signaling to one another in sweet minor calls of two and three notes. When excited they also utter low, twittering notes. 289a. C. v. floridanus (Coues). FLORIDA BOB-WHITE; QUAIL; PAR- TRIDGE.-Similar to the preceding, but smaller, the plumage throughout darker, the black of the back more extensive, the rump and upper tail-coverts grayer, GROUSE, BOB-WHITES, ETC. the black throat-band wider and sometimes reaching down upon the breast, the rufous-chestnut of the sides more extensive, the black bars of the breast and belly much wider. L., 8.50; W., 4·40; T., 2.50.