98 FIELD SHOOTING. 



great many grouse, and at the right times snipe 

 and duck are to be found in amazing numbers. 

 When I used to go out in that neighborhood for 

 the purpose of shooting, quail especially, I used to 

 get from twenty to thirty brace a day for many 

 days in succession. Varied shooting, however, is 

 more satisfactory sport to me, and 1 used to make 

 very heavy bags of grouse, quail, and some duck 

 mallards and teal. It is a great place for mal- 

 lards ; some of them stop all summer and breed 

 there, and some stop all winter, for there are 

 parts of the river which hardly ever freeze over. 

 Quail are more abundant about there now than 

 they were at the time I speak of, and there are 

 quite as many grouse ; but they are both more 

 difficult to kill than they used to be in the earlier 

 part of the season. The corn-fields have increased 

 so that they are now many and vast, and this 

 serves as a defence for the birds. There are more 

 quail in that country this year than there ever 

 were before. There are now, however, plenty of 

 quail all over Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. In the 

 southwest of Illinois, the region called Egypt, 

 there is a great deal of brush interspersed with 

 prairie, farm-lands, and groves of timber, and there 

 quail may be found in great abundance. But 



