252 THROUGH CANADA 



pace put on by the birds in such places demands skill 

 and quickness of the first order. 



Many years ago I shot pheasants just over the 

 border in New York State in a fairly open wood 

 where they throve in a wild condition. They flushed 

 well and flew rapidly. One cannot say so much for 

 those artificially reared, which are not sufficiently 

 removed from the farmyard environment to be 

 interesting. 



The most gamey of all the birds in the Dominion 

 are the quail. They lie like stones and with a good 

 dog get up one by one, going away with great 

 velocity. They require a steady hand, a clear eye, 

 and a few thousand rounds of shooting experience 

 to stop them. With a hard frost that has beaten 

 down the cover, a dry air, and sunshine with most of 

 the heat wrung out of it, a day's tramp after these 

 swift birds is delightful and exhilarating. 



