382 Qiiail and Grouse of the Pacific Coast 



the tyro up hill and down dale for miles without 

 giving him a shot that will bag anything. But 

 when chased up rapidly and flushed two or three 

 times as soon as they can alight, with a few shots 

 fired over their heads to scare them, the solid 

 ranks suddenly break and scatter over several 

 acres of ground. In this many lie as closely as 

 Bob-white ever lies, depending on the amount 

 and quality of the ground cover, while many more 

 rise at five, ten, fifteen, or twenty yards and up- 

 ward, from so many unsuspected places and in 

 such varied twists, that most of them call for the 

 very highest skill with the gun. Many more rise 

 far out of shot, while others steal away on silent 

 foot, and still others lie so that you can almost 

 tread on them. For the latter a good dog is 

 needed, but the others are liable to spoil him 

 unless great care be taken to keep him in order 

 in their riotous presence. In this way bags of 

 two hundred and fifty to a gun, with many more 

 crippled and lost by their speed of foot, were not 

 uncommon without a dog fifteen years ago, with 

 almost a certainty of a hundred and fifty. But 

 this was only for the expert, and nothing was more 

 amazing to the tyro than the few feathers he 

 would at first get out of the largest flock. And 

 many an expert from the East, who had not 

 learned the ways of this quail, was equally amazed 

 when he found the weight of his game far less 



