THE QUAILS OF CALIFORNIA. 71 



You have now come upon another difficulty which 

 the Eastern shot little suspects, and which is quite sure 

 to mar at least one day's happiness. These are the 

 toughest birds alive, and need an immense amount of 

 killing. They need, too, very dead killing, or half the 

 time you will find nothing but feathers where they have 

 fallen. Cartridges loaded for Bob AVhite will not do. 

 For old, full-grown birds here, you need the finest shot, 

 up to No. 10, that the gun will shoot to best advantage, 

 with about as much powder as you would use for ducks. 

 Even then, thirty-five yards will be a long shot, and if 

 you kill everything clean at thirty that you hold on 

 closely, you have an extra-good gun. 



Finding yourself out with weak cartridges, your only 

 remedy is to take no long shots. You will have plenty 

 at ten, fifteen, and twenty yards if you will possess your 

 soul in patience. See, now, as you advance, how from 

 this green sumac on the right, overhung with the snowy 

 drapery of the wild cucumber, from this wild alfalfa, 

 brilliant with scarlet and gold, upon your left, and from 

 among the crimson trumpets of this mimulus almost at 

 your feet, rise another, another, and another. Depend 

 upon it, you will get enough close shots. 



Scarcely a dozen more steps do you take forward, 

 when another quail bursts, whizzing and chirping, from 

 the orange-glow of a bunch of poppies, and as you raise 

 your gun upon it, another breaks, just beyond it, from 

 some chemisal over which the dodder is fast weaving its 

 orange-colored floss. Before your gun is in line with the 

 first bird, half a dozen more are buzzing, curling, and 

 chirping upward out of the wild buckwheat just at your 

 feet, over which the morning-glory is all in bloom; 

 another half-dozen join them at the report of your first 

 barrel, and the sound of your second barrel rouses as 

 many more from the spangled covert around you. 



