188 FRANK Schley's partridge and pheasant shooting. 



and stop him, there are a hundred chances to one he will 

 outrun you and escape. It frequently occurs that when 

 you come upon them suddenly, that they will squat and 

 lie close, until you stop or have passed by, when they will 

 whirr up, and fly off like lightning to the densest part of 

 the cover. When the snow is soft, deep, and drifted, Pheas- 

 ants, when they are hard pursued, will occasionally fly 

 right into it, and get covered up, or pitch into it and come 

 out again, a short distance in advance, and in this way fre- 

 quently escape purauit. When a brood of Pheasants are 

 dispersed they have no call to reassemble them together 

 again — ^they wait until chance brings them together, which 

 it generally does, at their haunts, or feeding grounds, or 

 places where they go to scratch or drink. 



MIGEATION. 



JHEASANTS do not rriigrate, but like the Partridge, 

 iOrtyx), shift their quarters on the approach of 

 Winter to thicker cover. The distance is not ex- 

 P tensive nor general. Pheasants will stray some 

 distance from the woods, let the cover and food be ever so 

 good. Earely I have found them two or three miles from 

 the woods in open fields, and shot them. Then agnin I 

 have come across single Pheasants in the open fields, among 

 covies of Partridges, at least four miles distant from any 

 woods or thickets. T recollect once, while Partridge shoot- 

 ing in company with Thomas W. Morgan and Major B. H. 

 Schley, in Frederick county, Maryland, of coming across a 

 single Pheasant among a covey of Partridges in the open 

 field, some three miles distant, apparently, from any woods 

 or thickets, and we drove the bii'd at least two m iles 

 through the open country, befoi'e we brought it to bag. It 



