BOB WHITE. 



BY AMORY R. STARR ("JACOB STAFF"). 



F all North American game birds, no one is 

 so well known to all true sportsmen, or so 

 deeply seated in their affections, as the 

 subject of this chapter; and, alas! no one 

 is so thoroughly misnamed. The name 

 "quail" is most generally used, and 

 is still further growing in favor. Never- 

 theless, it is a decided error so to call the 

 bird. Universal custom may be pleaded to 

 justify the use of this name, but the bird is not a quail, 

 despite the arguments of Herbert, Hawes, and later 

 writers. It is useless to discuss at length the difference 

 between the European quail and the American bird; this 

 ground has been repeatedly covered. Suffice it to say, 

 that the European quail has dark flesh, and is strictly 

 migratory and polygamous, while the American bird has 

 white flesh, and is non-migratory and monogamous, and 

 in these three respects resembles the English partridge. 

 In size alone, Bob White resembles the quail more nearly 

 than the partridge; and this led the Puritans of New Eng- 

 land so to misname our bird. The cavaliers of Virginia 

 and Maryland were better sportsmen than the Puritans, 

 being generally drawn from the landed proprietors and 

 rural population of England. They observed more closely 

 the habits and characteristics of all game, and they called 

 the bird a partridge. Unfortunately, however, the con- 

 tributors to sportsmen's journals, as a rule, lived in the 



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