152 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



for amusement, and to his own fireside for home comfort 

 and enjoyment. That entertaining but most inaccurate 

 writer, Herbert, in his anxiety to miscall the bird a quail, 

 used his utmost endeavors to prove that it was migratory. 

 In this section, the birds frequently leave the fields in 

 October or November, when the grain and weed-seeds 

 appear to be exhausted, and stay in the woods, especially 

 when there is a good mast. If the mast is an utter failure, 

 they go to the woods only in bitterly cold weather, and 

 not always then. Under no circumstances do they go 

 more than a mile or two from where they were reared, 

 and in January or February they return. Where your 

 dogs found a covey in October, you may expect to find 

 them again in February. Some writers have claimed that 

 while Bob Whites were always found in particular local- 

 ities, this did not prove the birds to be non-migratory; 

 for, they claimed, new coveys were continually taking 

 the place of those which preceded them in a general 

 movement in some particular direction. The incorrect- 

 ness of this opinion is demonstrated by the fact that cer- 

 tain coveys have peculiarities, and that the birds found 

 at that particular place will, during the entire season and 

 for successive seasons, act in the same manner; for 

 instance, I have known coveys which, when flushed, 

 would fly into trees and perch there, and this they would 

 do time and again, and year after year, thereby demon- 

 strating that they were the same birds which were always 

 found at that particular spot. 



Many claim that Bob Whites have the power of with- 

 holding their scent at will. This is an error, and here 

 again we find Herbert using his undoubted talents in a 

 misdirection. To the casual observer, it would appear 

 that they have this power, but a closer investigation will 

 enable one better to understand the phenomenon. If you 

 will take a musty, moth-eaten fur rug and move it across 



