mating season is scarcely over, the young not 

 yet grown, when the gunners about me go into 

 the fields with their dogs and locate every covey 

 of quail, even counting the number of birds in 



" He will come if May comes." 



each. With the dawn of the first day of open 

 season they are out, going from flock to flock, 

 killing, till the last possible bird is in their 

 bloody bags. 



One of the most pathetic of all the wordless 

 <?ries of the out-of-doors is the covey-call of 

 the female quail at night, trying to gather the 

 scattered flock together after the dogs are called 

 off and the hunters have gone home. 

 [151] 



