Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1916-04-12
Scientists Protest Against Wan.
ton Slaughter.
Farmers Fail to Appreciate the True
Value of Their Feathered Helpers
Their Work Extolled as
Foee of Insects.

The slaughter of the bobwhite, bet
ter known here as quail and partridge
has ceased, as the season is over and
the bird is about extinct The gun
ners have been persistent and every
covey that nested in the woods last
summer was trailed and shot this win
ter. Maryland Is one Of only six
states, with the District Of Columbia,
which has an open season for quail.
Forty-six states realize that the bob
white Is valuable asset and protect
him from the gunner.
The biological survey has been and
is making efforts to teach the farmer
that birds are his best friends and
that without them farming would be
impossible.
There is something more than game
ness and six ounces Of delicately faV-
ored meat to bobwhite. DR.. Sylvester
Judd of the biological survey has held
autopsies over hundreds of dead, and
Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice Of Clark
university has played detective on bob
white living. They have discovered
that bobwhite is marvelously benefi-
cent to human kind. Nature has not
provided such another scourge to in
sects and exterminator Of weed seeds.
He is nonmigratory and will be found
at his business place twelve months
Of the year.
On his ordinary bill of fare will be
found ia kinds Of insects and 129 of
weed seed. The gunner who shoots
him imagines that grain is about all
he eats, but as a matter of fact it
amounts to only one-sixth Of his food
for the year, and this is taken not
from the standing crops or among the
sheaves at harvest time, but from
what escapes the reaper. When grain
is sprouting in the fields bobwhite has
other matters to attend, for late in
the spring and summer two-thirds Of
his food consists Of the grains insect
foes, which make Is per cent on the
years total in the wild, or more than
ant list, too, for birds not Of his kind
eschew many CT his favorites. He
likes the potato beetle, the cucumber
beetle, squash lady bug, corn bill bug,
cutworms, tobacco worms, clover wee
vii, cotton boil weevil, imbricated
snout beetle, May beetle, plant lice,
grasshoppers, Rocky Mountain locust
and chinch bug.
The bobwhite chicks, eating A per
cent of their weight daily, live for six
weeks on insects, and in this time
consume 10000 each. One, week
old, ate 1926 plant lice and 20 meal
worms, and was not done for the day.
Here are some single meals for
adults:
Boil weevils, At; potato bugs, 1Ol;
chinch bugs, 100; squash bugs, II;
army worms, IL; cytworms, II; mos
quitoes, 56S-all in three hours. And
as a sample of days work, in addi-
ton to seeds, grain and green food,
note 1850 flies and 1885 rose slugs,
VI O,uUU pldllI iiCO.
In the winter months the bobwhite
turas to weed seeds, which form more
than half his food for the year, and
here are samples Of one birds con-
sumption for one day:
Barnyard grass, $500; beggar ticks,
1,4OO; black mustard, $500; burdock,
600; crab grass, 1000; curled dock,
4,175; dodder, 1860; evening prim-
rose, 10000; lambs quarters, $4,000;
milkweed, ITO; pepper grass, 2,4OO;
pigweed, 10000; plantain, 12,5OO; rab-
bits foot, clover, 10000; bush clover,
1900; smartweed. $3.50; white ver-
vain, 1880; water smartweed, 1000.
The years consumption by one pair in
captivity was 130,905 insects and TO-
442,6S8 weed seeds.
If bobwhite was an expensive piece
of machinery farmers would mortgage
their lands rather than be without
him. But as a friend provided by ma
ture they fail to appreciate his value.
"The cure for lessening game Is
less cunning, and it is the only cure,
said Prof. M. Llewellyn Raney Of
Johns Hopkins university. when a
gunner can be made to stop firing long
enough to realize that, it is possible
that he may listen to the economic
ornithologist, who is earnestly telling
what the real function of the bird in
the world is. The time was when the
southern rice grower was justified in
warning on what he called the reed
bird because of his depredations on
the crop in the spring and autumn.
But this basis for his classification as
q game bird in the eastern states has
been swept away, because this indus
try has vanished. In the North 1t Is
an economic factor of great import
ance, for in May. June and July S5 per
cent Of it's food is insects.
'It ought to be pleasure for the
South to treasure for the North this
efficient and melodious harlequin OF
che meadows, just as the North should
foster the swallows and orioles, the