THE GAME BREEDER 41 



IMPORTATIONS OF BOBWHITE QUAIL. 



By Hon. J. Quincy Ward, 

 Executive Agent of the Kentucky Game and Fish Commission. 



To the lovers of birds from the es- with pleasure the vividness, the joy given 

 thetic point of view, and especially the me when viewing the trim and business- 

 sportsmen, the casual mention of bob- like lines of his muzzle loading fowling 

 white arouses sweet memories that bless piece, and could I wield the brush of an 

 and burn. Osthaus I am sure I could reproduce 



As a hunter, fisherman and trapper in upon canvas even to the minutest detail 



boyhood, I had occasion to learn some- his magnificent lemon-and-white pointer 



thing of the remnants of wild life that dog, his clean, bony head, rich brown 



once abounded in the locality where I eyes and rippling muscles working in 



was born and reared, a county of the perfect accord beneath his silken coat 



far-famed "Blue Grass" section of Ken- caused us to know intuitively that he 



tucky. It was there that the riotous was the possessor of that indescribable 



reproduction of the alluvial soil nour- something, known as class, which would 



ished and caressed the summer's son, and on the morrow lead his followers un- 



showers filtering through the foliage of erringly to that hidden brown bevy that 



magnificent hardwood, checked by win- when flushed would go hurtling through 



ter, created a rendezvous par excellence the frosty air seeking to escape the 



for game and birds of all kinds. Here leaden hail to gain their well known co- 



they abounded in such quantities and verts of safety. 



qualities that the Indians made annual It was in this same territory years 



pilgrimages to supply their winter's lar- afterwards at twilight that I heard the 



der. call once heard by the sportsmen never 



The Indians' abbreviated description forgotten (here call) the assembly call 

 of this fertile land, the hunter's paradise of bobwhite. I wish that every hunter 

 filtered to the population of the east, when he hears this call would recognize 

 stimulating men like Boone and Crock- it at twilight as the "Marsellaise" and 

 ett, Lewis and Clark, to dedicate their a t dawn the "Star Spangled Banner" the 

 lives to the winning of the west. It was call of the wild, the brave and the free, 

 in this locality that the tide of civiliza- for then hunters worthy of the title 

 tion trending ever westward broke "sportsmen" would consider it taps to 

 through the then seeming impregnable his day's hunt and he would not take 

 barrier of the Appalachian Mountains, advantage of this call to increase his bag. 

 eddied and left in its wake the seed de- Possibly the memory of this call, min- 

 posit of men endowed with every at- glecl with the memory of. the swish of 

 tribute necessary to win the land for the wild fowls' wings at eventide was 

 civilization. The history created by their an inspiration to those great public- 

 efforts left to posterity a record of which spirited statesmen, that caused them to 

 Kentuckians are justly proud as rich write on the Federal statutes the edict, 

 with deeds of courage and daring, sen- "That before sunrise and after sunset, 

 timent and romance as the soil that sus- Thou shalt not kill," and going further 

 tained and nourished them. guaranteed to the migratory birds that 



It was to this land that came in my after they had run the gauntlet of the 

 childhood, a beloved uncle to visit again hunters on their trip to the Southland, 

 the country of his youth, to mingle with that they might in peace and safety re- 

 loved ones and spend a few days of well turn through the unchartered sea of air 

 earned vacation hunting bobwhite quail, to the lands which have not yet suffered 

 which was then almost virgin cover for of civilization, there in peace to repro- 

 this splendid game bird. I remember duce their kind for the benefit of men. 



