264: AMERICAN GAME. 



usually at the bottom of a tussock or tuft of grass, her 

 eggs being pure white, and from ten to thirty-two in 

 number, though about fourteen is probably the average 

 of the bevies. The period of incubation is about four 

 weeks, the young birds run 11 the instant they clip the 

 shell, and fly readily before they have been hatched a 

 fortnight. So soon as the, first brood is well on the wing, 

 the cock takes charge of it, and the hen proceeds to lay 

 and hatch a second, the male bird and first brood 

 remaining in the close vicinity, and the parents, I doubt 

 not, attending the labor of incubation and attending the 

 young. This I have long suspected ; but I saw so many 

 proofs of it, in company of my friend and fellow sports- 

 man, " Dinks," while shooting together near Fort Maiden, 

 in Canada West where we found, in many instances, 

 two distinct bevies of different sizes with a single pair 

 of old birds, when shooting early in September of last 

 year that we were equally convinced of the truth of 

 the fact, and of the unfitness of the season. 



In October, with the exception of a very few late 

 broods, they are fit for the gun ; and then, while the 

 stubbles are long, and the weeds and grasses rank, they 

 lie the best and are the least wild on the wing. The 

 early mornings and late afternoons are the fittest times 

 for finding them, when they are on the run, and feeding 

 in the edges of wheat and rye stubbles, or buckwheat 

 patches bordering on woodlands. In the middle of the 

 day they either lie up in little brakes and bog-meadows, 



