QUAIL SHOOTING 



339 



local peculiarities of the different sections, utilizing 

 such slight advantages as may offer, as hedges, fences, 

 the cover with which most streams are fringed, or 

 high weeds. 



The quail sadly needs cover for its protection, its 

 destroyers being both of air and earth hawks, foxes, 

 cats, dogs and the eggs, too, fall a prey to the rapa- 

 cious appetites of some of its enemies. In the South 

 the cur dogs of the negroes every family owning one 

 or more, all kept in a kind of half- famished condition 

 prowl through the fields seeking for food; they are 

 the very worst of egg destroyers. Were the quail 

 not so hardy and prolific, its fate would be swift, and 

 extermination certain. 



The negroes* dogs seem to be almost omnivorous. 

 In the fall they may be seen making daily visits to 

 some persimmon tree, under which they eat the fallen 

 fruit with apparent relish. Those which have some 

 claim to hound blood are not averse to making a meal 

 in the corn field, on corn when it is in the milky stage. 

 With such rapacious enemies to contend against, the 

 destruction of the quail must be great, but in addi- 

 tion to all that, many are trapped and netted, methods 

 which destroy whole bevies at a time. 



But to return to the matter of the quail's habitat : 

 in certain parts of the South, as in the oak woods in 

 sections of Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, or in the pine 

 woods of Louisiana, Mississippi, etc., the quail may 

 live wholly in the woods, food, always a first consid- 

 eration, being there secured in abundance. 



