“ABOUT A BUSHEL.” A QUAIL STORY = 139 
The shooting was certainly fine, but I was as green 
as grass at it. The rising whirr of the quail coveys 
startled me. ‘The birds seemed so small after shooting 
ducks that it was hard to judge the right distance. It 
was either a miss or a double the first day—the miss 
when I shot too quickly. It was splendid shooting. 
Quail were everywhere. Full coveys were sometimes 
found not two hundred yards apart. The dogs would 
start twenty-five to thirty coveys a day. We would get 
in our four shots on the first rise, but unless they scat- 
tered out away from the brambles, we would let them 
go and hunt up another covey. 
The dogs had short kennel names. It was a week 
before I knew that Bob, Sam, and Betty as I called 
them were really members of the nobility of sporting 
dogdom, descendants of Queens, Dukes, and Counts. 
They showed it too in their handsome appearance and 
eagerness in hunting. I had an object lesson of how 
puppies were taught to be eager after game. A ten- 
acre field two miles from the kennels was a jumble 
of the worst possible brambles, but it was alive 
with both quail and rabbits. Dad had eight ten- 
months-old puppies and gave them several hours’ 
exercise a day, chasing small birds. One afternoon 
all eight were taken over to the bramble field and 
turned loose. 
The quail and rabbits there must have thought the 
old boy was after them. They came piling out in every 
direction, the rabbits by the trail, the quail by the 
overland route. The dogs were wild with excitement, 
barking and crashing through the brambles; nothing 
could hold them. Up would go a bunch of quail in the 
air, frightened out of their small wits. Close under 
them for an instant, among the rambles, would appear 
