324 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
begin to call, and there seem no more fresh bevies to be 
found. Then follow up those which have been flushed 
during the morning, either to the precise spots into which 
they have been marked, or as nearly as ean be judged to 
the place, and proceed to beat for them with the utmost 
care and patience, picking up bird after bird, and never 
sparing to turn and return, if it were a dozen times, until 
every quail has been accounted for. 
In this part of the sport, if the country be well stocked, 
it will be hard fortune, indeed, if one do not fall in with 
fresh bevies; which, for the most part, lie up during the 
basking time of the day in precisely the same ground to 
which they fly for shelter when disturbed; and if this be, 
as it almost invariably will in rolling country, where the 
bevies are found on the upland slopes and hill-sides, in the 
swamps and hollows, it will be bad luck, indeed, if a good 
sprinkling of woodcock and a few ruffed grouse, do not 
come in to swell the bag. 
The quail is, probably, the hardest bird in the world 
to kill quickly, certainly and cleanly. He gets under way 
with the speed of light; before the wind he goes like a 
bullet from a rifle, when he has once fairly got on his 
wings; he flies as fast in the thickest covert, which he 
affects, as he does out of it; he takes a heavy blow, and 
that planted exactly in the right place, to bring him down; 
and, above all, he has a habit of carrying away his death- 
wound, flying as if unhurt, until his life leayes him in mid 
air. 
He has another knack, which disappoints the sportsman 
of many a snap shot, when not pointed, of lying close 
