92 AMERICAN GAME, 
whisps, or single birds, tarry a few short days, and flit 
onward to their unknown destination. 
This, then, is their mystery—that in no known land 
are they perennial; in no ascertained region—so far as I 
can learn—are they positively known to breed in the 
vast concourses which must breed somewhere, in order 
to supply the prodigious flights which issue yearly from 
the northern regions of three continents, Europe, 
America, and Asia, to fill the warmer countries, and to 
be slaughtered literally by myriads, season after season, 
without undergoing much if any visible diminution of 
numbers. 
Ever, in all places, in all countries, in all continents, 
which they visit in spring, they are seen pressing north- 
ward still, from March until May ; no one being able to 
say here ends their tide of emigration, this is their chosen 
resting-place. 
Their breeding season is from the middle of May to 
the beginning of July; on the 4th of which month I 
have shot young birds, with the pin-feathers undeveloped, 
as large as the parents—these birds having been hatched 
on the ground whereon I killed them. Indeed, it is my 
opinion, that all birds which tarry in our latitudes be- 
yond the 10th of May, either do breed with us, or would 
do so but for the persecution of the pot-hunter—all 
which intend to steer farther north having departed ere 
that time. 
About the 15th of July the returning hordes, young 
