Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1875 — The Quails. [ARTICLE]

The Quails.

A correspondent of the Indiana Farmer puts in the following plea for the quail: I saw.in your last issue an article on the quail as au insect destroyer. I agree with your correspondent so far. -Now if he will permit me I will give him some facts in regard to iucreasing and perpetuating the quail on the farm. The worst enemy the quail has is the farmer. Home one in the township has a net, and finishes the flock in a most cowardly way. You generally. find him a lazy lout, and in tiie spring you can see him and his like along the riverq drawing a seine and destroying countless millions of eggs that tiie bass, salmon and other game fish have deposited iu their nests iu the sand a few feet from tire shores. Now if this pot hunter would let three male and female quails loose in the spring, they will mute ana raise three broods. If the quail is left to multiply, they will enumerate in the spring. I have seen flock after flock of young birds attempt to fly over tiie Illinois river and not one but the two old birds ever reached the opposite shore. Now if the quail are limited in the season set by law, tiie flocks are broken and scattered. In the spring they will mate and breed. I had one flock on the place three years ago, and I shot a few for my own use, the rest scattered around in the fields aud I have a brood or two in every one of my fields. One of the worst destroyers of this little bird is the village boy or the fellow that goes out a little while in the evening. The female dusting in the road just oil' or her nest or the male bird on the fence stake giving the call of love to his little consort, are all legitimate game to the magnificent loafer, ami twenty or thirty eggs are left to spoil. Use the gun with judgment and you can multiply the quail. All the old Hlates have more than the new, because they protect when the birds most need it. . *