VALLEY QUAIL 69 



from 5 to 50 yards away. They burst from the brush with rapid flight and 

 whizzing wing, most of them with a sharp, clear, pit, pit, pit, which apprizes 

 their comrades of the danger and the course of escape taken. Some dart 

 straight away in a dark blue line, making none too plain a mark against the 

 dull background of brush, and vanish in handsome style, unless you are very 

 quick with the gun. Others wheel off on either side, the scaling of their breasts 

 showing in the sunlight as they turn, and making an altogether beautiful mark 

 as they mount above the skyline. Some swing about and pass almost over your 

 head, so that you can plainly see the black and white around their heads and 

 throats, and the cinnamon shading of their under surfaces. 



Although this quail is a splendid game bird and as good on the 

 table as our eastern quail, all sportsmen who have shot both seem 

 to agree that our bobwhite is a far more satisfactory bird to hunt. 

 The valley quail will not lie to a dog, unless thoroughly frightened ; 

 it has a most exasperating habit of running, which is quite dis- 

 heartening to both man and dog. D wight W. Huntington (1903) 

 referring to Mr. Van Dyke's comments on the former abundance 

 and habits of this quail, says : 



He said that when he first came to California, in 1875, quail in flocks now 

 quite incredible soared out of almost every cactus patch, shook almost every 

 hillside with the thunder of a thousand wings, trotted in strings along the 

 roads, wheeled in platoons over the grassy slopes and burst from around almost 

 every spring in a thousand curling lines. The same writer says that the 

 partridges have already deserted many of the valleys and are now more often 

 found in the hills, ready always to ruu and fly from one hillside to another, 

 and " their leg power, always respectable enough to relieve you from any 

 question of propriety about shooting at one running, they have cultivated to 

 such a fine point that sometimes they never rise at all, and you may chase and 

 chase and chase them and get never a rise." Writing at another time Mr. 

 Van Dyke advises the shooter not to attempt to bag anything at first, but to 

 spend all the time in breaking and scattering the coveys, racing and chasing 

 after them and firing broadsides over their heads and in front of them, until 

 they are in " a state of such alarm that they will trust to hiding." He then 

 advises that the dog (which I presume has been used in coursing the birds) 

 be tied to a shady bush and that the coat be laid aside, that the sportsman may 

 travel fast after the scattered birds. 



Occasionally they may behave differently and offer good sport, as 

 in the following account by Henshaw (1874) : 



As a rule, their ways are not such as to endear them to the sportsman ; for 

 they are apt to be wary, and unless under specially favorable circumstances, 

 are not wont to lie closely. I have, however, flushed a large bevy contiguous 

 to a bushy pasture where the scrub was about knee-deep, with cattle-paths 

 through it, and have had glorious sport. The birds lay so close as to enable 

 me to walk almost over them, when they got up by twos and threes, and went 

 off in fine style. The sportsman may now and then stumble upon such chances, 

 but they do not come often. A bevy once up, off they go, scattering but little 

 unless badly scared, the main body keeping well together ; and having flown 

 a safe distance they drop, but not to hide and be flushed one after another at 

 the leisure of the sportsman. The moment their feet touch firm ground, off 



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