THE AMERICAN QUAIL, OR VIRGINIA 
PARTRIDGE. 
Ortye Virginianus. Perdix Virginianus. 
Novemser is upon us—hearty, brown, healthful Novem- 
ber, harbinger of his best joys to the ardent sportsman, 
and best beloved to him of all the months of the great 
annual cycle; November, with its clear, bracing, west- 
ern breezes; its sun, less burning, but how far more 
beautiful than that of fierce July, as tempered now and 
softened by the rich, golden haze of Indian summer, 
quenching his torrent rays in its mellow, liquid lustre, 
and robing the distant hills with wreaths of purple light, 
half mist, half shrouded sunshine ; November, with its 
wheat and buckwheat stubbles, golden or bloody red; 
with its sere maize leaves rustling in the breeze, whence 
the quail pipes incessant ; with its gay woodlands flaunt- 
ing in their many-colored garb of glory ; with its waters 
more clearly calm, more brilliantly transparent than 
those of any other season ; November, when the farmer’s 
toils have rendered their reward, and his reaped harvests 
glut his teeming garners, so that he too, like the pent 
