226 Life and Immortality. 



their giowth before the coming of snow. If unmolested, it 

 is evident, therefore, that the species would increase with 

 great rapidity, as shown by the celerity with which regions, 

 where the birds had been well nigh exterminated, have been 

 replenished when a period of quiet for a season or two has 

 been allowed them. The young run about in a very lively 

 manner as soon as they have left the shell, and in a few days 

 are given over to the care of the father, whom they follow 

 and obey as readily as they did the mother, possibly because 

 they do not recognize the change of guardians, while she 

 returns to the cares of rearing another family. 



During the spring and early summer both old and young 

 find an abundance of food for themselves in the larvae of 

 various insects, the succulent shoots of growing plants and 

 such seeds as abound. Later on, strawberries, blueberries, 

 huckleberries and other wild fruits supply their demands. 

 In August they grow fat upon grasshoppers, and as this is 

 the time when seeds ripen, acorns and beech-nuts fall, and 

 the stubble-fields are full of scattered wheat, rye, barley and 

 maize, and insects are plentiful upon the ground, they feast 

 themselves to satiety before the winter begins, until they 

 have reached that delectable plumpness so highly esteemed 

 by bon vivants. Attaining their full growth by the end of 

 September, at least in the case of the earlier broods, the 

 season of play for the partridges and sport for the gunner 

 has come. Quail-shooting is regarded as a test of marks- 

 manship in the United States. So rare and wild have the 

 birds become by reason of incessant hunting, that it cer- 

 tainly requires skill and fine shooting to make a bag. Bred 

 in the open fields, and feeding early in the morning and late 

 in the evening, a man may beat a field all day, and put up 

 only one or two birds, when he is certain that twice as many 

 lay concealed, huddled up in little knots in out-of-the-way 

 places, which the best of dogs might easily pass without 

 discovering. Their inconspicuous colors, too, which are in 

 keeping with the objects around them, so conceal them from 



