424 The Australian Bush. 



smaller scrub up towards the Murray, the bronze-winged pigeons 

 swarm in hundreds, I may say thousands. I suppose in different 

 districts the pigeons appear at different seasons. Their breeding 

 season is from October till the end of January, when the young 

 birds will be strong flyers. At all other times they may be killed 

 whenever they can be met with. 



I take it that the quail, like the pigeons, appear in different dis- 

 tricts at different seasons j but I fancy their breeding season is the 

 same everywhere, and they should be spared from about the begin- 

 ning of November till the middle of January. The quail is the 

 Australian partridge, and quail -shooting is certainly the pleasantest 

 of all field sports out here. It reminds the sportsman of September 

 at home, for it is fair open work, and in quail-shooting a man can, 

 if he pleases, have the pleasure of seeing his dogs work in the old 

 style. Moreover, they are generally pretty thickly dispersed over 

 the whole country, and in a few hours' shooting a tolerable shot 

 can always make a nice little bag. I used to consider from fifteen 

 to twenty couple a good day's bag. I once killed thirty-seven 

 couple, and I rarely bagged more than fifteen out of twenty. 

 Taking in misses and lost birds I recovered, every couple of birds 

 cost me 3^. to kill, and they averaged is. per couple throughout 

 the year. 



I may mention that a code of game laws for the protection of the 

 game in Victoria during the breeding season has been framed since 

 my day, but as I have never yet seen it I am unable to say during 

 which months the birds are preserved. 



Besides the game birds above mentioned, these swamps swarm 

 with bitterns, rails, blue coots, herons, cranes, and many other 

 waders. The wild turkey is met with on all the large plains in the 

 interior, and the emu in many places even within the civilized 

 districts. 



Although the list of game birds indigenous to the Australian bush 

 may be meagre when compared with that of many other lands, 

 still the different species are met with in such vast quantities that 

 there is a wide field open for the sportsman who is content with the 



