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Bob White — Part 2
Images coming soon.
In May, a simple nest, or slight depression in the ground, lined with leaves and grasses, is formed sometimes in the stubble, in a grassy tussock that meets overhead, and must be entered from one side; or beneath a small bush, next a worm-eaten old log, at the foot of a stump; or in the cotton rows--anywhere, in fact, where seclusion favors. Some nests have been found with well constructed domes, and the entrance a foot or more from the nest proper. Incredibly large numbers of brilliant white eggs--as many as thirty-two--are reported in a single nest, all skilfully packed in, pointed end downwards to economize space. Does the amiability of the female extend to sharing her nest with a rival, or are all these eggs hers? Remove an egg, and it is impossible for the human hand to rearrange the clutch with such faultless economy. In the middle and southern states, where two and even three broods have been reared in a season, the number of eggs laid at a time rarely exceeds ten, so that the autumn coveys there are no larger than those in the north. Both parents take turns in covering the eggs, the male encouraging his brooding mate by cheerful, musical whistles introduced by a half-suppressed syllable, that the New Englanders translate into No more wet! more wet! or Pease most ripe! most ripe! and the Western farmers into Sow more wheat! more wheat! A shrill weeteeh, used as a note of warning; quoi-hee, quoi-hee, to reassemble a scattered covey; a subdued clucking when undisturbed, and a rapidly repeated twitter when surprised, are Bob White's vocal expressions. One feels happier for having heard his exuberant joy and pride whistled from a fence-rail or low branch of a tree. How readily he answers the farmer's boy whistling to him from the plough! He is decidedly in evidence, bold and fearless during the twenty-four days of incubation; but one rarely sees the female then. She is ever shy. Ray, the English naturalist, says the European quail hatches one-third more males than females--a proportion that corresponds with the numbers generally bagged by our gunners. Should the eggs be handled when first laid, the nest is at once deserted. Mowing machines work sad havoc every year.
Precisely as a brood of chickens follows a mother hen about the farm, so a bevy of comical little downy Bob Whites, sometimes with the shells still sticking to their backs, run about through the tangled brake and cultivated fields, learning from both devoted parents which seeds of grasses, cereals, and berries they may eat. Farmers bless them for the number of weed-seeds and insects they destroy. The fox and the hawk, next to man, are their worst enemies. A note of alarm sends the fledgelings half-running, half-flying, to huddle up close to the mother; or when a cold wind blows, a soft, low, caressing twitter summons the babies to shelter beneath her short wings, that barely cover the large brood.
Later, the young scatter and hide among the grass, while the parents, feigning lameness and the usual pathetic artifices familiar to one who has ever disturbed a family of young birds, dare all things for their dear sakes. Should some accident befall the female during incubation, the male faithfully covers the eggs and ministers to every want of his happily precocious family; and in the south, where the female frequently begins to lay again when her first brood is but a few weeks old, it is the father, a pattern of all domestic virtues, that then assumes its full care. When the second brood leaves the shell, one large happy family, known in sportsman's parlance as a bevy or covey, makes as charming a picture as one is likely to meet in a year's tramp. Southern sportsmen, especially, sometimes express surprise at finding birds still in pin feathers and unable to fly in November, when part of the brood, at least, may not be distinguished from adults; but these most prolific of all game birds not infrequently devote six months to nursery duties. Bob Whites are eminently affectionate, and a covey never willingly disperses until the spring pairing season.