QUAIL SHOOTING 341 
In the North, the quail makes its home where some 
buckwheat or other grain field is available for a food 
supply. It so arranges its haunts that it has some 
cover within easy flight, in the densest part of which 
it seeks safety when flushed, not refusing the heavily 
timbered swamps if too much persecuted by the shooter. 
In such places it has an excellent chance of escape 
from pursuit, or may foil its pursuer by simply run- 
ning away; or, if pressed to take flight, it has many 
chances for safety owing to the difficulty of shooting 
accurately in the dense cover. 
New England shooting is the most difficult of all 
quail shooting, excepting, perhaps, shooting in the 
dense pines and cat briers of the South. Then, to 
have any satisfactory success, the scattered birds must 
be diligently followed and sought in the thickets, be 
they ever so dense. In this respect it differs from 
shooting in the sections of more abundance, where 
such close attention to the scattered birds is unneces- 
sary, either for sport or the interest of the bag. 
In the South, where there is an abundance of birds, 
comparatively, the sportsman rarely tarries with a bevy 
which gives him any special difficulty. It is much 
easier, and more satisfactory, to go on and seek more 
birds. For this reason, even under favorable oppor- 
tunities, the scattered birds are never, as a rule, hunted 
till the last one is flushed, and flushed again, when it 
is possible, as in the North. 
In New England, buckwheat fields are the quails’ 
choicest resorts for food, and any adjacent brush, or 
