QUAIL SHOOTING 345 



will promptly cross out from one side to the other, 

 missing the scent, and accomplishing nothing useful. 

 He does not know what is required of him. But once 

 he catches the idea, he soon improves on it, following 

 carefully along the bottom of the ditch and pointing 

 the scattered birds here and there, every few yards 

 apart, in ones and twos, the shooter having a good 

 opportunity from his position on the outside to kill as 

 the birds fly out. 



The shooting along ditches is not so easy as one 

 might imagine. Sometimes the birds run swiftly sev- 

 eral hundred yards or more in the ditch, and may then 

 run out and across to other ditches, giving a trail which 

 may try the most experienced dogs to follow. 



If the birds happen to be near a cotton or corn field, 

 where the ground is bare, and there are no ditches for 

 concealment, they may run so fast and far that the 

 dog may never approach near enough to them to secure 

 a point, and the shooter who is inexperienced in this 

 work will be likely to think that his dog is surely 

 deceiving him. 



When near the woods, or switch-cane, the birds 

 often take shelter therein, and when in the latter cover 

 it is well to abandon further pursuit of them. 



In the sugar country, where there may be corn fields 

 here and there among the broad levels of the sugar- 

 cane, the character of the shooting again changes. 

 Many birds will be found in and around the corn fields, 

 and then it is very pretty shooting. 



It may not be amiss to mention, for the benefit of 



