GAME IN GENERAL. 185 



and I found them during the first part of the day dusting 

 in the beaten tracks. Towards mid-day they were off 

 to unfrequented places, and in shady covert afforded by 

 rank grass and bushes. 



On the march I again bagged five grouse, a brace of 

 what the Americans call quail, but which are really their 

 partridge, and a spotted water-rail. The meat on the 

 prairie grouse is brown, but that on the wood grouse, 

 which they call their pheasant, as well as on the quail, 

 or partridge, is white, like that of the birds of the same 

 name in England, the pheasant or wood-grouse the 

 whitest of the two. Of these beautiful birds of game the 

 prairie grouse is the largest, the wood grouse the next 

 in size : the former, if anything, larger than our black- 

 game, and the latter about the size of, or rather less 

 than, our grouse. The partridge or quail is larger than 

 the quails we have in England, but less than our par 

 tridge, and they haunt the woods, particularly when 

 they are adjacent to cultivated land. They lie well, do 

 not fly far, and call together very soon, much as our par 

 tridge do, and they rise like them, but fly faster. They 

 are in method of flight, gregarious habits, and haunts, 

 precisely what a partridge in England is, with the one 

 sole difference, that they, even in the earliest instances 

 of the young brood, always hang about the skirts of 

 cover. They have, however, one peculiar quality 

 which the Californian quail has, but which our English 

 partridge has not, and that is, they will fly from a dog 

 or predatory animal for safety into trees. During my 

 journey I had opportunities of seeing this, and have 

 killed a brace of these beautiful birds from the tree above, 

 with my double gun, while Chance was still pointing at 

 others below ; those in the tree having taken him, as I 



