QUAIL SHOOTING. 107 



the potatoes, in October. We thiiik they may be 

 classed among Irish game, without fear of a bull. 

 No doubt they are capricious, and may, some fine 

 day, desert the shores of the Emerald Isle, as they 

 are said to have done those of Great Britain ; but 

 for the present, St. Patrick may safely claim them 

 for his own. 



Pointers and setters are both partial to the scent 

 of the quail, setting it as readily as the pheasant or 

 the partridge. It resorts to the stubbles, and occasion- 

 ally the long after-growth of the meadows : during 

 the morning it is most readily met with. All the 

 authorities on shooting leave this specimen of the 

 craft untouched, or nearly so; indeed, mtli one ex- 

 ception, no modem sporting book treats of the bird 

 at all from original materials. This exception is a 

 paper which appeared, some few years since, in the 

 "New Sporting Magazine;" the residt of some consi- 

 derable experience in the English histoiy of the quail. 

 The author seems to have studied liis lore in the 

 .Isle of Thanet ; where, he says, this bird is to be 

 found at all seasons of the year. That locality, he 

 states, was formerly so famous for it, either from its 

 vicinity to the French coast, or the quantity of grain 

 grown there, that people resorted to it from great 

 distances, for the express purpose of quail shooting. 

 Latterly, however, he says, their numbers have con- 

 siderably fallen off; but still the sportsman, in the 

 beguming of September, may kill from two to three 

 brace a-day. " Along the banks of the Thames, 



