Sketches in the East and West 277 



said. " For some reason, there are usually about 

 three broods here. Sometimes they are all in a 

 flock like this, sometimes separate. But they 

 always run ahead of the dog till they get near the 

 marsh and take refuge scattered on the tussocks. 

 If you don't mind wetting your ankles, we can 

 get two or three of them, though they're hard to 

 flush out there, and the dogs can't find them with 

 much success." 



We wet our ankles and got the two or three 

 birds. But it was not what I call pleasant shoot- 

 ing, and the dogs were bothered as much finding 

 dead birds in the water and marsh grass as we 

 in getting through the mud. 



Going around the other side of the farm, we 

 flushed a bevy on a ditch bank grown dense with 

 heavy grass, now down and matted. When the 

 dogs were ordered on, they trotted toward the 

 thicket where the quail had taken refuge, nosing 

 as they went. Fidelity to history compels any 

 annalist to say that the dogs of the good old times 

 pottered no little and did not wander so far that 

 the owner of a ringing voice — and who does not 

 know the long and musical reach of the " hollers " 

 which men learn when they hunt a fox or a 'coon 

 at night? — could not control them without a 

 whistle. In fact, the whistle is a modern innova- 

 tion on the Eastern Shore. 



Nosing, then, and trotting rapidly but cau- 



