256 AMERICAN GAME. 
ground, and though it breeds not every month in the 
year, which are the true distinctive characteristics of the 
Rabbit—is in his prime of conditions, the leverets of the 
season, plump and well-grown; and the old bucks and 
does, recruited after the breeding season, in high health 
and strength, and now legitimate food for gunpowder, 
legitimate quarry for the chase of the merry beagles. 
In this month especially, the Quail, the best-loved and 
choicest object of the true sportsman’s ambition; the 
bird which alone affords more brilliant and exciting 
sport than all the rest beside; the bravest on the wing, 
and the best on the board; the swiftest and strongest 
flyer of any feathered game ; the most baffling to find, 
the most troublesome to follow up, and when followed 
up and found, the most difficult to kill in style; the 
beautiful American Quail is in his highest force and. 
feather ; and in this month, according to the laws of all 
the States, even the most rigorous and stringent in pres- 
ervation, killable legitimately under statute. 
In New York, generally, the close-time for the Quail 
ends with October, and he may not be slain until the 
first day of November; in New Jersey, ortygicide com- 
mences on the 25th of October, in Massachusetts and 
Connecticut on some day between the 15th of the past 
and the first of the present month; in Pennsylvania, 
Delaware and Maryland, where they are something 
more forward, as breeding earlier in the season than in 
the Eastern States, on the first of October; and in 
