60 FRANK SCHLEY'S PARTRIDGE AND PHEASANT SHOOTING. 



Northern distribution, being found in Northern New York 

 and in Southern Canada. Mr. Mcllwraith gives it as resi- 

 dent in the neighborhood of Hamilton. In many parts of 

 Massachusetts the Quail has become a very rare bird, owing 

 to the ravages caused by sportsmen and the severity of 

 winters, heavy falls of snow being frequently particularly 

 fatal to them. In heavy falls of snow they frequently hud- 

 dle together on the ground, and allow themselves to be 

 buried in the drifts. If the snow is light, they can easily 

 extricate themselves and run over its surface in quest of 

 berries, and the seeds of shrubs ; but if the fall be followed 

 by a partial thaw, and a crust forms, the birds are made 

 prisoners within its impenetrable cover, and miserably 

 perish of hunger. In the severe winters of 1866 and 1867, 

 large numbers of Quail thus perished throughout all parts 

 of Massachusetts. When the snow melted, they were 

 found, in numerous instances, crowded close togther, and 

 embedded in the frozen drifts. Unlike most birds they 

 never collect in large flocks, but usually move in small 

 family groups, varying in numbers from ten to thirty, but 

 too often reduced to a mere remnant by the inroads of the 

 sportsman. These birds are often found in grounds more 

 or less open, preferring those in which there is abundance 

 of low trees and clusters of shrubs in which they can shel- 

 ter themselves. The Quail is esteemed a great delicacy as 

 an article of food, and is sought for the market by means 

 of traps, nets and various kinds of snares, and by sports- 

 men with the gun and dogs. It is naturally unsuspicious, 

 is easily approached, and in the thickly settled parts of 

 the country its ranks are already greatly thinned. It is 

 gradually disappearing from New England, and is now 

 very rare in large tracts where it was once quite abundant. 

 In some localities they have only been retained by the im- 

 portation of others from a distance. They are of gentle 

 disposition, are apparently much attached to each other 

 both in the conjugal and in the parental relations, and 

 always keep closely together in the small flocks associating 



