Page 242 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

In Bulletin No. 21, Biological Survey, it is calculated that if in Virginia and North Carolina there are four bob whites to every square mile, and each bird consumes one ounce of seed per day, the total destruction to weed seeds from September 1st to April 80th in those states alone will be 1,341 tons.
In 1910 Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice, of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., finished and contributed to the Journal of Economic Entomology (Vol. III., No. 3) a masterful investigation of "The Food of the Bob- White." Itshouldbeineverylibraryinthisland. Mrs.Nicepublishes the entire list of 129 species of weed seeds consumed by the quail,—and it looks like a rogue's gallery. Here is an astounding record, which proves once more that truth is stranger than fiction
Number of Seeds Eaten by a Bob-White in One Day
Barnyard grass Beggar ticks Black mustard Burdock
Crab grass Curled dock Dodder
Evening primrose Lamb's quarter
2,500 Milkweed 770 1,400 Peppergrass 2,400 2,500 Pigweed 12,000
Colorado potato beetle Cucumber beetle Chinch bug
Bean-leaf beetle Wireworm
May beetle
Corn billbug Imbricated-snout beetle Plant lice
Cabbage butterfly Mosquito
Squash beetle
«
Clover leaf beetle
Cotton boll weevil Cotton boll worm Striped garden caterpillar Cutworms
Grasshoppers Corn-louse ants
Rocky Mountain locust Codling moth
Canker worm
Hessian fly
Stable fly
600 Plantain
2,000 Rabbitsfoot clover
4,175 Round-headed bush clover. . 1,560 Smartweed
10,000 White vervain 15,000 Water smartweed
.
12,500 30,000 1,800 2,250 18,750 2,000
Notably Bad Insects Eaten by the Bob-White (Prof. Judd and Mrs. Nice.)
Summary of the Quail's Insect Food
Orthoptera—Grasshoppers and locusts Hemiptera—Bugs
Homoptera—Leaf hoppers and plant lice
13 species. 24 "
6 " 19 "
8 61 8 6
—Moths, caterpillars, cut-worms, etc Diptera—Flies
Lepidoptera
— Hymenoptera—Ants, wasps, slugs
Coleoptera Other insects
Beetles
:
220 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
Total 145
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