QUAILS. 215 



eriug of leaves. The sportsman should be early afield, for 

 as soon as the sun appears the birds leave their roosting 

 places and commence running about. Their scent is then 

 easily found by a dog, especially if they are plentiful, and 

 they generally are at that season, as they congregate in 

 large bevies. When they are flushed they fly for the first 

 cover, then scatter, and lie so close, in many instances, 

 that a person may kill the majority of them, as they rise 

 singly or in pairs. The best dogs frequently fail to detect 

 birds which are actually under their noses. The cause of 

 this is attributed by some persons to the power quails have 

 of withholding their scent, while others assume that it is 

 the result of " too much scent being scattered about," 

 as the birds run in various directions when they alight, 

 and thus make it impossible to locate them. Some think 

 that the creatures are so terror-stricken on reaching cover 

 that they press the feathers close to the body, and thus 

 prevent their scent from escaping. Either of the latter 

 two theories seems more plausible than the first, as it 

 does not seem possible for a bird to have the power of 

 voluntarily withholding the odor of its body. The only 

 way to rout the quails, when they baffle the dogs, is to 

 thoroughly beat the ground or bushes, as they often wait 

 until they are almost kicked out before they take to the 

 wing. 



The Virginia quail is the only species of its genus that 

 really affords good sport, as it is the only one which will 

 lie any way well to a dog. It is also scattered over the 

 greater part of the country, from Massachusetts to the 

 Eocky Mountains, but it is far more numerous m the 

 Western than in the Eastern States. Its abundance in 

 the West may be inferred from the fact that it is nothing 

 unusual for a man to bag from twenty to thirty brace in 

 a day, with a muzzle-loader. A pot-hunter has boasted 

 of killing two thousand m a little over five months, and 

 a person who considered himself dexterous with the gun 



