104 FIELD SHOOTTNO. 



Alabama, in the neighborhood of which city 1 was 

 shooting with a gentleman named Ellis and Mr. 

 Jacobs, a gunsmith. On the day in question Mr. 

 Jacobs did not take the field, and Mr. Ellis and 

 I were alone. He had a brace of splendid set- 

 ters, a black and a red. For one of the dogs 

 he had paid two hundred and fifty dollars, and 

 he would not have taken five hundred for the 

 brace. They had fine noses and were splendid 

 workers. In the course of our sport we found a 

 bevy of quail in old grass at the edge of a bit 

 of prairie which had once been ploughed up, and 

 was now an old garden all overgrown with weeds 

 and briers. The quail ran in the grass, but 

 finally got up together. Mr. Ellis killed two and 

 I killed two. A few went away, and were marked 

 down at some distance. Mr. Ellis believed they 

 were all gone. The dogs beat the ground tho- 

 roughly, and could find no more. I said that 1 

 believed there might be more, upon which Mr. 

 Ellis made his dogs try it again, and then con- 

 fidently pronounced that there could not be an- 

 other quail there. I said, " I still think there may 

 be quail here and I will show you how to make 

 them rise if there are any." With that I imitated 

 the kind of whistling noise made by the old quail 



