About the middle of March the winter flocks break up, and the mating begins. Although not indulging in the noisy and seemingly meaningless antics of the grouse to call attention to his personal attractiveness, Bob White, it would appear, becomes suddenly conscious of his comely looks and excellent voice. In a dignified manner, with head erect, he walks proudly about, inviting the opposite sex to view him at his best. From the orchard gate he calls a saucy good morning to the farmer, knowing that the law holds its _ægis_ over him at this time, but he keeps an eye to hawks, cats and other predatory animals that respect neither time, place nor season. He is polygamous, willing to assume any amount of family responsibility, and will help to rear two, or even three, broods a year, a successful pair often turning out twenty-five young in a season. It is not an uncommon occurrence to find a covey of little cheepers, scarcely able to fly, as late as November. Although paired so early, the Quails do not proceed to the business of nidification in the central part of their range until about the middle of May. The leeward side of some dense tussock of grass, a mouldering stump in a wild, matted meadow, the woody margin of a clover field or orchard, or an old pasture overgrown with bramble thickets, are situations commonly chosen, the female, as is her undoubted right, taking the lead in fixing upon the site. An artificial bed of grasses and vegetable trash, filling a shallow depression, is the nest. Sometimes it is placed so as to be concealed by overarching grasses, through which a regular tunnel, several feet in length, conducts to the sanctum; and, at other times, is only covered with leaves and straw, which the birds themselves have rudely adjusted. The nest, which is constructed solely by the females of the family, varies in dimensions according to the number of this sex that anticipate using it, the male in the meantime going about in quest of food, or sitting upon a low twig close by, cheering his wives by his trisyllabic note, and very faithfully warning them of the imminence of danger. The work is prosecuted with considerable zeal, three days at farthest sufficing to make the nest ready for the first egg, which is immediately laid, and which is followed by one on each consecutive day, until seven or eight have been deposited. As many as thirty eggs are sometimes found in a single nest, which is due to the polygamy of the male. Two, and often three and four females, are taken by a male, and two have been known to occupy simultaneously the same nest.