THE QUAILS OF CALIFORNIA. 73 



from beneath your feet, others rise at thirty, forty, fifty, 

 seventy, and even 100 yards and over. Very few fly over 

 300 yards before alighting again. 



Nowhere else, outside of a good duck -pass during 

 "the evening flight, " shall you find such brain-befuddling 

 intensity of shooting as on ground like this. When you 

 have handled your birds right, the gun flames almost as 

 fast as you can load it, and birds you can not hope to 

 shoot at are whizzing and chirping on every hand at 

 every step forward. Through the smoke you see dark 

 lines darting and wheeling, and a constant chirp, chirp, 

 chirp, plays the interlude between its quickest thunders. 

 You are lost in the confusion and the strange nature of 

 the background; the earth ablaze with flowers that would 

 adorn any garden, yet all strangers to your eye; a sky 

 above you that you have rarely seen elsewhere; the soft 

 air filled with notes of a score of other birds whose music 

 is all new to your ear; the distant slopes rolling away in 

 long undulations of green, and gold, and blue, until they 

 break into the chaparral of the hills, the higher hills 

 looking solemnly blue with distance, and above all, great 

 snow-clad peaks looking down upon the whole. 



You may thus traverse this piece of ground to and 

 fro several times, but after the first and second beating 

 the shooting will rapidly decline. You may still have 

 fair shooting for two or three hours more, but when the 

 shooting falls oif to anything less than a good shot every 

 two minutes, you may let loose your dog. You will now 

 be surprised at the number of birds still lying on the 

 ground you have just walked over several times. Many 

 of them lie about as well as Bob White, and for 

 hours to come you may have plenty of shooting 

 upon this same ground But though no one loves hunt- 

 ing with a good dog more than I do, I prefer the uproar 

 and racket of a new flock, which, up to the last three 



