THE VIRGINIAN ORTYX. 219 
pheasant, the turkey, and so many more valuable animals 
that to enumerate them would be tedious. However, I be- 
lieve that there are quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, still 
strangers to England, that require only to be known to be 
appreciated ; and by placing their merits before the public, 
some one may be found sufliciently patriotic to make the 
attempt to naturalize them. 
Without more preamble, and to come at once to the 
point, let me say that in my humble opinion there is no 
bird more worthy of attention, and more deserving of the 
honor of introduction to any land, than the American ortyx. 
Its numerous good qualities, together with its description, 
I will to the best of my knowledge give, hoping it may be 
the means of our yet seeing this little beauty ornamenting 
European fields, and adding brilliancy and variety to the 
game-bags of its numerous enthusiastic sportsmen. The 
American ortyx varies in weight from eight to ten ounces, 
is erect in his walk, very handsome in plumage, strong 
upon the wing, feeds principally upon grain, grass-seed, and 
ants, frequents indifferently brush, timber, or open coun- 
try, is capable of standing cold, is not quarrelsome with 
‘other game, and is very prolific, frequently hatching two 
broods in a season. Moreover, an advantage which can 
not be too highly estimated, is that it never gets so wild as 
to rise so far from your dogs as to be out of gun-shot, a 
nuisance that all are so well aware of in our home-bred 
bird toward the end of the season. In fact, who that shoots 
regularly can not remember instances of our partridge dis- 
appearing over the far side of a field as soon as the sports- 
man had entered it? Now, in years of experience in 
America, I never saw an instance of this kind; up to the 
commencement of the close season they would remain al- 
most as tame as they were at the termination of the pre- 
vious one. A reason for this may be that they seldom 
