253 AMERICAN GAME. 
the former not only easily may, but actually does all but 
annihilate the breed, whenever the snow falls and lies 
deep during any weeks of December, during the whole 
of which month the pursuit and sale of this charming 
little bird is legal. 
Could I have my way, the close-time for Quail should 
end on the last day of September; and the shooting 
season end on the twenty-fourth day of December ; 
before which date snow now rarely lies continuously in 
New Jersey, Southern New York, or Pennsylvania. 
Why I would anticipate the termination of the close- 
time, in reference to the Ruffled Grouse, I shall state at 
length, when I come to treat of that noble bird, in our 
December issue; to which month I have attributed it, 
because it is then that it zs, though in my opinion, ¢ 
ought not to be, most frequently seen on our tables. 
While on the topic of preservation, I will mention a fact, 
which certainly is not widely, much less generally 
known, among farmers; namely, that this merry and 
domestic little bird is one of his best friends and assist- 
ants in the cultivation of his lands. During nine or ten 
months of the year he subsists entirely on the seeds of 
many of the most troublesome and noxious weeds and 
grasses, which infest the fields, more especially those of 
the ragwort, the dock, and the briar. It is believed, I 
might almost say ascertained, that he never plucks any 
kind of grain, even his own loved buckwheat when ripe, 
from the stalk, but only gleans the fallen seeds from the 
