years the data may provide justification for continued open seasons, despite poor hunting success early in the season. The separation of juvenile and adult bobwhite quail has been based primarily on wing-feather characteristics. Dwight (1900) apparently was the first to make an intensive study of plumage changes in quail. He reports that the two distal primaries in all quail and grouse are retained in the postjuvenal molt, but he makes no mention of how these feathers differ from those on older birds. Stoddard (1931) calls attention to the shape of the outer two primaries as a criterion for separating young (pointed) from older birds (blunted). Van Rossem (1937) reports that the juvenal primary coverts in native quail are retained until the first annual molt the second fall (about August). Leopold (1939) reports that the buffy fringe on the tip of greater upper primary coverts 1 through 7 (counting from inside--outward) provides the best means for identifying young of the year. Thompson and Kabat (1950) made detailed studies of the molt of bobwhite quail and enumerated some irregularities in e wing molt of trapped wild birds. Studies on over 11,000 quail in Alabama have shown that the degree of marking on these coverts and the pointedness of the outer two primaries vary sufficiently to introduce a small error in separating young from old. This condition led to efforts to improve further on techniques for recognizing young of the year. Results of that study are here reported. A total of 7,037 quail wings sent in by cooperators during the 1954-55 hunting season (Nov. 25--Feb. 20) in Alabama was examined for age-ratio data. The wings were received in special postage-reply envelopes. Age was determined by methods described by Stoddard, Leopold, and Thompson and Kabat. Young of the year were recognized by whitish or buffish tips on the coverts (Fig. 1), and by pointedness and slight fading of the outer two primaries. A fluorescent light was used to help distinguish the faded brownish color of the outer two primaries in young of the year. Adult birds were recognized by the even slatish gray coverts, and rounded tips and similar shading on all primaries (including Nos. 9 and 10). Even when all these characteristics were used, some quail could not be aged with accuracy because of the intergradation of characteristics. Such birds were recorded