GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 9 
England and America, are migratory, although the 
mere temporary character of their residence does 
not, in our view, at all alter the nature of their 
claims. The larger European woodcock is by no 
means so delicious or highly flavored a bird as our 
yellow-breasted, round-eyed beauty, and is much 
scarcer; while the foreign quail, on the other hand, 
is smaller than ours, and in southern Europe is 
found in vast flocks; but both are entitled to high 
rank among modern sportsmen. 
The term Game Birds, therefore, should be, and 
has been by general consent, greatly extended in its 
application, and applied to all the numerous species 
which, whether migratory or not, are killed not 
alone for the market, but for sport; and which are 
followed on the stubble fields, in brown November, 
with the strong-limbed and keen-nosed setter, or 
shot from blind in scorching August; slain from 
battery in freezing December, or chased in a boat, 
or misled by decoys. All wild birds that furnish 
sport as well as profit are therefore game; and the 
gentle dowitchers along our sea-coast, lured to the 
deceitful stools, are as much entitled to the name as 
the stately ruffed grouse of our wild woods, or the 
royal turkey of the far west. 
To constitute a legitimate object of true sport, the 
bird must be habitually shot on the wing, and the 
greater the skill required in its capture, the higher 
its rank, The turkey, therefore, although frequently 
killed on the wing, is more a game bird by suffer- 
ance than by right, and partly from his gastronomic 
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