QUAILS. 221 
poet expressed his opinion of it’ in the following beauti- 
ful stanza: 
“ Where can you find a nicer thing, 
Than shooting quail upon the wing ; 
That’s the way to pass your life, 
Free from care and worldly strife.” 
Comment upon this poetic effusion was interrupted by 
the entrance of the host with a tray of steaming glasses, 
filled with a generous quantity of applejack and hot 
water, in his hands. These received prompt attention, 
until it was time to retire. We were up early the next 
morning and at work in the field soon after sunrise. 
The birds laid better to the dogs than on the previous 
day, and the consequence was that we had much more 
amusement and a larger bag. We staid in that place 
four days, and though we bagged specimens of nearly every 
species of bird indigenous to the prairie at that season, 
our greatest haul was among the quails. We averaged 
about twelve brace a day, and we should have done bet- 
ter if we had cared to work from sunrise to sunset. 
I have been out with men who killed from thirty 
to sixty brace of quails in a day, but such shooting 
soon satiated them, for it was more like work than 
amusement, and slaughter than sport. A manly, gen- 
erous soul may feel somewhat like a hungry man at 
a feast, when he first gets into a good game resort, 
and try to get all he can, but if he has the instinct 
of a true sportsman his better nature soon rebels 
against the slaughter and forces him to give it up 
in disgust. If he makes only moderate bags, he is 
satisfied with his work and himself, and ready to take 
the field at any time; but if he kills for the sake of mak- 
ing a big score, the labor becomes disagreeable. I once 
spent a week on the prairie with a party of four, and 
though we shot every day, we always had an appetite for 
our work the next morning, simply because we were not 
