274 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



Near the ocean, separated from it by a long line 

 of sand-dunes, blazing white in the sun, amethystine 

 in the shade, lay our quail grounds. You could 

 shoot till you were tired, then bathe, then lunch, 

 then shoot again till dusk. It was never too hot, 

 nor too cold. The sea-breeze kept you company, 

 and in your ears was the melodious roar of the 

 surf. The picture has stamped itself on our mem- 

 ories ; in the foreground the grey-green sage-brush, 

 soft, velvety, and aromatic ; then the dunes fring- 

 ing the Pismo Bay, and back of all, the enchanting 

 Pacific, with the long, smooth rollers sliding across 

 its placid surface, and crashing upon the hard, dun 

 sand. A and I shall never enjoy such shoot- 

 ing again. The quail would rise in enormous 

 bevies, scatter out, and settle within fifty or a 

 hundred yards. Then we would advance slowly, 

 the retrievers well to heel, and flush the birds, 

 singly and in pairs. One might suppose that the 

 quail enjoyed the fun, so willing were they to lie 

 snug, so complaisant in giving the worst duffer that 

 ever fired a gun a dozen chances. They scorned the 

 thickets in those halcyon days, and always flew 

 straight away, low and fast, and on a horizontal 



line. Z , a member of the English colony, 



counted himself the laziest man in California, but 

 even he shot quail fifteen years ago. This youth 

 rose not with the lark, and, clad in flannel shirt 

 and trousers, his red, good-natured face crowned 

 with a sombrero, would ride bare-back — he was 

 too lazy to saddle his pony — to pleasant Pismo. 

 His bronco, a mild beast, never objected to carry a 

 light fishing-rod beneath a coarse tail, that lay tight 



