THE SCRUB QFAIL. 107 



rally rise singly, or quickly one after the other, and never, 

 like partridges at home, in coveys. 



The best season's quail-shooting I ever knew was when 

 my old mate Eendall, or " the old boy,"- as we called him, 

 shot on the heather at Picnic Point, about twelve miles 

 south of Melbourne. He bagged 1,500 couple of quail 

 on one ground in the season ; but he had miles to shoot 

 over. Twenty-five couple per day was his general bag ; 

 he averaged eighteen birds out of twenty shots, and he 

 used to work at it day after day, like any other kind of 

 labour. But he certainly was the best shot I ever saw 

 take a gun in hand (and I have sliot by the side of " the 

 Squire " and other good men), and there was scarcely 

 his equal in the colony in beating for* game. He shot 

 to a couple of little mongrels, the smallest a bobtailed 

 terrier, about 5 lbs. weight, and" Johnny " rarely passed 

 over a quail. I never used setters or pointers in quail- 

 shooting ; our dogs were up to every kind of bush-work, 

 from driving a kangaroo to hunting for quail. Of course 

 there are plenty of well-bred setters and pointers out 

 here, and we generally see the best dogs in the hands of 

 men who use them least; but the Melbourne sportsmen 

 can now, as the advertisement runs, have " their dogs 

 broke as they ought to be, by a Leicestershire sportsman," 

 at £5. 5s. per head. 



The common quail is found on one of the New Zealand 

 islands, but I believe there is no snipe in that country. 



The Scrub Quail, or, as we called it in the bush, the 

 partridge quail, is the largest of all the species^ with a 



