258 AMEBICA3T GAME. 



the former not only easily may, "but actually does all but 

 annihilate the breed, whenever the snow falls and lies 

 deep during any weeks of December, during the whole 

 of which month the pursuit and sale of this charming 

 little bird is legal. 



Could I have my way, the close-time for Quail should 

 end on the last day of September; and the shooting 

 season end on the twenty-fourth day of December ; 

 before which date snow now rarely lies continuously in 

 New Jersey, Southern JSTew York, or Pennsylvania. 

 Why I would anticipate the termination of the close- 

 time, in reference to the Ruffled Grouse, I. shall state at 

 length, when I come to treat of that noble bird, in our 

 December issue ; to which month I have attributed it, 

 because it is then that it is, though in my opinion, it 

 ought not to be, most frequently seen on our tables. 

 While on the topic of preservation, I will mention a fact, 

 which certainly is not widely, much less generally 

 known, among farmers ; namely, that this merry and 

 domestic little bird is one of his best friends and assist- 

 ants in the cultivation of his lands. During nine or ten 

 months of the year he subsists entirely on the seeds of 

 many of the most troublesome and noxious weeds and 

 grasses, which infest the fields, more especially those of 

 the ragwort, the dock, and the briar. It is believed, I 

 might almost say ascertained, that he never plucks any 

 kind of grain, even his own loved buckwheat when ripe, 

 from the stalkj but only gleans the fallen seeds from the 



