i6o Life in the Open 



few days they fly, and later the valleys are filled with 

 great flocks of grown and half-grown birds. 



Quail hunting takes the sportsman into the open 

 and affords him some of the most delightful glimpses of 

 Southern California. If the San Gabriel fails there are 

 countless valleys near Santa Barbara, in San Diego, 

 Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and other counties 

 which afford excellent shooting ; or, one may go up the 

 coast through Ventura or along shore above Santa 

 Monica, or to Santa Catalina, where at the camp at 

 Eagle's Nest, where the cafion dips down toward the sea, 

 I have sat and watched the quail and listened to their 

 continuous calls, kwok-kwoo kwok-kwoo or o-hi~o, 

 o-hi-o, or ka-loi-o* ka-wak-up, a medley of flute-like 

 sounds and their variants coming from the high green 

 slope of the mountains. 



In February, when the charm of winter is at its 

 height, the land is often ablaze with colour, and the 

 sportsman may walk through little valleys carpeted with 

 a cloth of gold, when the yellow and white daisy-like 

 blossoms star the ground, and the yellow violet nods in 

 the gentle wind, or he may emerge into a little valley 

 where the painter's brush has drawn its colour scheme as 

 far as the eye can see, while the low trees are covered 

 with the brilliant red of the honeysuckle. Led on and 

 on, he finds the golden mustard and later the indigo of 

 the larkspur blending in the sun, and on the edge of the 

 little wash trumpet-like flowers, a flame of colour. 



In the wash, across which the birds now run, the 



