UPLAND SHOOTING. 225 



with his well-trained Setter and unerring gun, so that death has 

 sorely thinned their numbers, they will protract their little call 

 for their lost comrades, even to night-lall ; and in such cases — 

 I know not if it be a fancy on my part — there has often seemed 

 to me to be an unusual degree of melancholy in their wailing 

 whi.stle. 



Once this struck me especially. I had found a small bevy of 

 thirteen birds in an orchard, close to the hcnise in which I was 

 passing a portion of the autumn, and in a very few minutes 

 killed twelve of them, for they lay hard in the tedded clover, 

 and it was perfectly open shooting. The thirteenth and last , 

 bird, rising with two others, which I killed light and left, flew J I y^av 

 but a short distance, and dropped among some sumachs in the - ,. 

 corner of a lail fence. I could have shot him certainlv enough, 

 but some undefined feeling induced me to call my dogs to heel, ^ -^ f "^ *^\^ 

 and spare his little life ; yet afterward I almost regretted what ■ . /, 

 I certainly intended at the time to be mercy ; for day after day, '' 



so long as I remained in the countiy, I heard his sad call, from"-^* t ' '' i 

 morn till dewy eve, crying for his departed friends, and fullL^f{;^_^ i 

 apparently of memory, which is, alas ! but too often another .v 

 name lor soitow. ^ 



It is a singular proof how strong is the passion for the chase, _^ / ' 

 and the love of pursuit, implanted by nature in the heart of nlxJ-cx, 

 man, that however much, when not influenced by the direct 

 heat of sport, we deprecate the killing of these little birds, and 

 pity the individual sufferers, — the moment the dog points, and 

 the bevy springs, or the propitious morning promises good 

 sport, all the compunction is forgotten in the eagerness and 

 emulation which are natural to our race. 



It is also worthy of remark, that in spite of his apparent 

 tameness at peculiar seasons, and his willingness to be half na- 

 turalized, the Quail has hitheito defied all attempts at perfect 

 domestication, and has, I believe, never been known to breed 

 in confinement, — this peculiarity going, perhaps, some way to 

 render him fair game. 



Of all birds, in this or any other country, so far as I know 

 15 



