256 AMERICAN GAME. 



ground, and though it breeds not every month in the 

 year, which are the true distinctive characteristics of the 

 Rabbit is in his prime of conditions, the leverets of the 

 season, plump and well-grown ; and the old bucks and 

 does, recruited after the breedingjseason, in high health 

 and strength, and now legitimate food for gunpowder, 

 legitimate quarry for the chase of the merry beagles. 



In this month especially, the Quail, the best-loved and 

 choicest object of the true sportsman's ambition ; the 

 bird which alone affords more brilliant and exciting 

 sport than all the rest beside ; the bravest on the wing, 

 and the best on the board ; the swiftest and strongest 

 flyer of any feathered game ; the most baffling to find, 

 the most troublesome to follow up, and when followed 

 up and found, the most difficult to kill in style ; the 

 beautiful American Quail is in his highest force and 

 feather ; and in this month, according to the laws of all 

 the States, even the most rigorous and stringent in pres- 

 ervation, killable legitimately under statute. 



In New York, generally, the close-time for the Quail 

 ends with October, and he may not be slain until the 

 first day of November ; in New Jersey, ortygicide com- 

 mences on the 25th of October, in Massachusetts and 

 Connecticut on some day between the 15th of the past 

 and the first of the present month; in Pennsylvania, 

 Delaware and Maryland, where they are something 

 more forward, as breeding earlier in the season than in 

 the Eastern States, on the first of October ; and in 



