THE VIRGINIA PARTRIDGE. 391 



up the vision of days gone by, the happiest and purest days 

 of life. Remembrances of the babbling brook, where, in 

 days of yore, with alder rod in hand, we tempted from the 

 deep and sparkling pools the spotted trout, come up and 

 mingle with the recollection of the meadow's sweetest odors 

 and songs of Bobolink and Thrush. 



To listen to the Quail is to bring back to memory every 

 pleasant hour of boyhood's life, and without that song half 

 of the charms of our fields and meadows and pastures would 

 be lost. 



The Quail, or more properly, Partridge, speaking orni- 

 thologically, pairs and commences nesting about the first 

 of May in our latitude, sometimes earlier if the spring is 

 forward ; in more southern localities the eggs are laid 

 earlier. 



The nest is often concealed under a clump of bushes or a 

 tuft of thick grass, but sometimes it is built in a quite ex- 

 posed position. I have found nests in little thickets of 

 brier bushes growing beside walls and fences, and have seen 

 one at least that was made under the lee side of an old 

 stump. The nest is constructed of small twigs and grass, 

 and is lined with finer leaves of grass and herbage. I have 

 never seen one covered at the top like the nest of the Oven 

 Bird or Golden-crowned Thrush such as has been described, 

 although the birds may occasionally so cover them. I have 

 seen altogether perhaps fifteen or twenty nests, and not 

 one was covered at the top. "Wilson says that the nest 

 " is well covered above and an opening left on one side for 

 entrance," and other writers have put on record the same 

 fact, so that it is probable that the bird's nesting habits vary 

 in different sections. In a great number of eggs from many 

 localities that I have examined, some were nearly pure white, 

 others were smeared with some blotches or confluent dabs of 

 yellow. These markings were caused, I judge, by stains from 

 the earth or damp vegetation on which the eggs were laid. 

 The form of the egg is pyriform or pear-shaped; their aver- 



