DOMESTICATION OF QUAILS. 181 



are now called into service to effect its capture, until, in New England, 

 where it was once very abundant, and was not early enough protected, it 

 is fast disappearing, and fresh importations have been found necessary 

 to preserve a sufficient number for sport. In the Southern and Western 

 States bands of beaters cautiously drive immense flocks into nets. But 

 there is less danger of exterminating this than perhaps almost any other 

 species of game-bird, on account of its sequestered habits and prolificacy. 

 Taming and domestication is an easy matter, although in all cases 

 where the eggs have been hatched under a hen at liberty — a bantam is 

 the best — the quail chicks have run away to the woods as soon as the 

 leaves began to turn sear in the fall, and never come back. They sang 

 out their "Ah, Bob White" just as clearly before they had ever heard 

 one of their kin as any woodland-bred quails could do. It is not uncom- 

 mon to re-colonize portions of the Eastern States that have become de- 

 populated, and an effort made to introduce the bird into the Salt Lake 

 Valley of Utah succeeded admirably. Some of the West India islands 

 have been colonized in the past few years, and I see no reason why this 

 quail might not, with care, be acclimatized in Great Britain, and thrive 

 in English preserves until there are plenty for all the purposes of good 

 sport ; yet up to the present time the attempts which have been made 

 in England and Ireland to do this have completely failed. 



