24 GROUSE FAMILY. 



extremity of New Hampshire, and this limit, no doubt, is deter- 

 mined by the length and severity of the winters which prevail 

 ill this rigorous cUmate. They seldom migrate, except to short 

 distances in quest of food, and consequently often perish 

 beneath deep drifts of snow, so that their existence is rendered 

 impossible in the Arctic winters of our high latitudes. Indeed, 

 sometimes they have been so thinned in this part of the coun- 

 try that sportsmen acquainted with their local attachments 

 have been known to introduce them into places for breeding 

 and to prevent their threatened extermination. So sedentary 

 are the habits of this interesting bird that until the flock is 

 wholly routed by the unfeeling hunter they continue faithfully 

 attached to the neighborhood of the spot where they have been 

 raised and supported. 



Johnston, Willoughby, and Ray distinguished the Mexican 

 bird by the quaint title of the "Quail's Image." The first 

 settlers of New England also thought they saw in this familiar 

 bird the Quail of the country they had relinquished. The 

 two birds are, however, too different to require any critical 

 comparison. Ours is even justly considered by European 

 ornithologists as the type of a peculiar American genus, to 

 which has been given the name of Ortyx by Stevens, — the 

 original appellation of the Quail, or Yerdix coturnix, as known 

 to the ancient Greeks. The name of Colin, contracted by 

 Buffon from the barbarous appellation of some Mexican spe- 

 cies, has been adopted by Cuvier, Temminck, and Vieillot. 



Although there is some general resemblance between the 

 Quail of the old and new continent in their external appearance, 

 their habits and instincts are exceedingly different. The true 

 Quail is a noted bird of passage, with a favorable wind leaving 

 Europe for the warmer parts of Asia at the approach of winter ; 

 and with an auspicious gale again returning in the spring, in 

 such amazing numbers that some of the islands of the Archi- 

 pelago derived their name from their abundant visits. On the 

 west coast of Naples, within the small space of four or five miles 

 as many as a hundred thousand have been taken in a day by 

 nets. Our Partridge, though occupying so wide an extent of the 



