172 GAME-BIRDS AT HOME. 



and the long, dark plume bent backward by 

 speed. He looks too pretty to shoot as he 

 cleaves the warm sunlight, or, setting his little 

 wings, glides into the thickest mass of the thorny 

 cactus. 



In a few days Jones learned the dark and de- 

 vious ways of the valley quail and became quite 

 an expert on them, though he never found them 

 as easy shooting as if they would lie to a dog like 

 Bob White. After an absence of ten years he 

 returned again to California. After quite a hunt, 

 in which he missed the welcome call of the 

 quail he had before heard in almost every little 

 valley and on every hillside, he heard a muffled 

 roar of wings. After losing a minute in locating 

 the sound, he saw well up the hillside only some 

 thirty birds, spread out in line like a fan aimed 

 for nearly half the horizon and just clearing the 

 top of the ridge. Shooting to scatter them 

 would be ridiculous, for they were already as well 

 scattered as they could be. That flock was not 

 going to bother him by running together again 

 before he could reach it. So he scrambled 

 up hill with legs nimble with expectation and 

 over the ridge, expecting to find the birds hiding 



