226 Life and Immortality. 
their giowth before the coming of snow. If unmolested, it 
is evident, therefore, that the species would increase with 
great rapidity, as shown by the celerity with which regions, 
where the birds had been well nigh exterminated, have been 
replenished when a period of quiet for a season or two has 
been allowed them. The young run about in a very lively 
manner as soon as they have left the shell, and in a few days 
are given over to the care of the father, whom they follow 
and obey as readily as they did the mother, possibly because 
they do not recognize the change of guardians, while she 
returns to the cares of rearing another family. 
During the spring and early summer both old and young 
find an abundance of food for themselves in the larve of 
various insects, the succulent shoots of growing plants and 
such seeds as abound. Later on, strawberries, blueberries, 
huckleberries and other wild fruits supply their demands. 
In August they grow fat upon grasshoppers, and as this is 
the time when seeds ripen, acorns and beech-nuts fall, and 
the stubble-fields are full of scattered wheat, rye, barley and 
maize, and insects are plentiful upon the ground, they feast 
themselves to satiety before the winter begins, until they 
have reached that delectable plumpness so highly esteemed 
by don vivants. Attaining their full growth by the end of 
September, at least in the case of the earlier broods, the 
season of play for the partridges and sport for the gunner 
has come. Quail-shooting is regarded as a test of marks- 
manship in the United States. So rare and wild have the 
birds become by reason of incessant hunting, that it cer- 
tainly requires skill and fine shooting to make a bag. Bred 
in the open fields, and feeding early in the morning and late 
in the evening, a man may beat a field all day, and put up 
only one or two birds, when he is certain that twice as many 
lay concealed, huddled up in little knots in out-of-the-way 
places, which the best of dogs might easily pass without 
discovering. Their inconspicuous colors, too, which are in 
keeping with the objects around them, so conceal them from 
