A BEGINNING ON QUAILS. 



J. A. MACKENZIE. 



Well do I remember the first time I tried 

 to bring the swift-flying quail to bag. I 

 chose a raw, windy day in November and 

 had an extremely swift lot of birds, such 

 as I have not met since. My pointer, 

 Vic, and I took our stand in a buckwheat 

 field and the old dog ranged back and 

 forth over the buckwheat without finding 

 any game. Finally she made a dash into 

 a clump of yellow top, wormed her way in 

 and out among a dense growth of briers, 

 slackened her pace and drew up cautiously 

 to a pretty point at the edge of a brush 

 heap. A fence was between us and I was 

 afraid to climb for fear the birds would 

 flush, so I ordered her to put them up. In 

 she sprang and the birds went like so 

 many rockets. Remembering to hold ahead 

 I brought up the gun and fired, but not a 

 feather fell to gladden the heart of the 

 novice. I was dumbfounded. Two birds 

 at least ought to have stayed with me; 

 but life is full of mysteries. 



I reloaded, and hunted up the scattered 

 birds among some lodged buckwheat in a 

 far corner of the field, where they had 

 taken refuge. Vic soon found one and 

 pointed it magnificently, her slim body 

 curved in a semicircle while her liver and 

 white head, stretched to the full extent of 

 her long neck, indicated the whereabouts 

 of the quails. I moved cautiously up. The 

 bird burst from the tuft of buckwheat like 

 a cannon ball and went down wind at a 

 speed which threatened to start the feath- 

 ers from their sockets. In my excitement 

 I snapped at it, but the bird must have 

 flown faster than my shot, for the last I 

 saw of it was a gray streak disappearing 

 over a neighboring fence. 



The wind blew and the birds and shot 

 flew, but, sad to say, without colliding. 

 The dog pointed them faithfully and I 

 missed them accurately. Thoroughly dis- 

 gusted with my shooting I called in the 

 dog and followed the birds into a Big, open 

 wood of maple and elm. Vic there dis- 

 played her wide ranging qualities, but al- 

 ways came in at 2 blows of the whistle. 

 While on a long cast of 150 yards or more 

 to my left she suddenly turned, drew up to 

 a brush heap and pointed. She held her 

 point, as staunch as a rock, until I arrived 



and deliberately picked the birds out of 

 the brush. They shot out as swift as ever, 

 with the accustomed whirr of wings, so 

 musical to the ear of the sportsman. 

 Profiting by my previous poor success, I 

 carefully covered the bird before pulling 

 the trigger and had the satisfaction of see- 

 ing it pitch headlong to the ground beside 

 a stump some 30 yards away. At last I 

 was jubilant. The feathers on the bird 

 were carefully smoothed down and it 

 was placed head first in a little cone 

 of paper, which was then stowed away in 

 the roomiest part of the game bag. Vic 

 was called in and patted and sent to work 

 again. She found 2 birds in a fence cor- 

 ner, which flushed wild and took to the 

 trees. I marked one in the crotch of a big 

 maple, from which he came down in re- 

 sponse to a load of number 7's. By that 

 time the birds were thoroughly dispersed, 

 so failing to find any more we went home, 

 fully resolved to try our luck again the 

 first opportunity. 



Later in the fall, I got 12 quails one day 

 out of a similar bevy, but the wind was not 

 blowing so hard and I had learned a thing 

 or two; namely, that snap shooting does 

 not pay so well as deliberate but quick 

 aiming on quails, and that in leading a 

 crossing bird allowance must be made for 

 the time it takes to bring the gun to the 

 shoulder, as well as for the time it takes 

 the shot to reach or swing with the bird. 

 In all that season's shooting I was seri- 

 ously handicapped by a full choked gun. 

 I consider a gun bored right barrel cylin- 

 der and left full choke the best for all 

 around shooting in these parts. The right 

 barrel gets in at the rise and then there is 

 time for the left. Besides, long shots can 

 frequently be made at quails, grouse, hawks 

 or ducks that could not be killed with 2 

 cylinders. My experience has been that a 

 modified choke is less regular in pattern 

 than either a cylinder or a full choke, a 

 slight difference in wadding, crimp or 

 charge making a great difference in the 

 pattern, both as to closeness and evenness. 

 My old gun always gave the best pat- 

 tern with 3 drams of powder, black or 

 nitro, and one ounce of number 6 shot. 



Any smoker who really wishes to quit 

 the habit can do so by knocking the live 

 ashes of his pipe into a keg of blasting 

 powder. 



21 



