
HUNTING CALIFORNIA QUAIL 
With Some Observations on Dogs 
BY W. J. BURKE 
AVING spent many sca- 
sons with the bob-white 
quail on Iowa’s stubble- 
fields before coming 
West, I speak from ex- 
perience when I pro- 
nounce the little blue- 
plumed native of the 
cactus and sage brush the gamest bird that 
flies. Not only is he fleet of wing and foot, 
but in emergency his strategic proclivities 
are a never-ending study to the most experi- 
enced hunter, and often thwart the sagacity 
of the keenest pointer. Unlike the bob- 
white, he never flies in a direct line, but con- 
tinues to rise from the moment he is flushed 
until he begins to drop to the cover, with 
always a curve to the left or right. This lit- 
tle trick has many times cost the expert gun- 
ner, fresh from the East, fully a hundred 
shells and as many ejaculations bordering 
upon profanity before he has bagged his 
first bird. And again, the fact that he is 
brought down, leaving in his wake enough 
feathers for a small mattress, does not always 
signify that he is a “dead bird’’; no sooner 
do his feet touch the ground than they take 
up the flight where his broken wing relin- 
quished it, and he will continue to put space 
behind him so long as life exists in his body. 
If captured after being wounded, never 
for a moment does this bird ‘‘lose his head”’ 
nor fail to take every advantage of existing 
circumstances. Many a time have I taken 
a wounded blue quail from my retriever and 

given it water, which the little fellow drank 
from the palm of my hand. But I have 
never known the California valley quail to 
become thoroughly domesticated or 
“tamed.” Even birds hatched under a hen 
and reared to run at large about the farm- 
yard will eventually flush at some unaccus- 
tomed noise or movement and depart with- 
out further notice. Once in the sage brush 
they quickly adopt the life and methods of 
the wild birds, and thenceforth show no evi- 
dence of having ever known civilization. 
It is somewhat strenuous work hunting 
these quail, for the little rascals will some- 
times run and run, before taking flight. 
After being shot at on the first rise, they will 
do any amount of sprinting rather than fly. 
The hunter must needs have a good pair of 
lungs, a small girth and a good determina- 
tion to get a fair bag. And because of this 
running habit of the blue quail, feather- 
weight guns of 16-gauge, and even smaller, 
are becoming more used. This, tomy mind, 
is well for both the sportsman and the game. 
The smaller gun, while easier to’carry and 
to get on the bird with in quick shooting, 
has at the same time a restricted danger 
zone. And in this day of disappearing game 
and yearly increased numbers of sportsmen, 
we must give our game good odds. 
The abundance of green food in the hills 
during the past spring and summer, as a 
result of the early and generous winter 
rains, caused the bands of quail to scatter, 
and their early mating, already begun, be- 
speaks a great increase of birds for the com- 
ing October’s sport. | 
While quail-shooting is considered the 
finest sport in California fields, yet the 
hunter might as well go forth with a bow 
and arrow as to be in the fields without a 
good dog. It is quite possible to find birds 
plentiful without a dog’s help, but it is a 
conservative estimate that without a re- 
triever the shooter will not recover more 
than one out of every five birds killed. 
They are such little terrors to run the 
instant they totich the ground, and so 
completely does the color of their plumage 
blend with their surroundings, that the 
hunter is scarcely ever sure of his bird until 
- he has it in his hand. So, as I have said, a 
good retriever is a necessity. But here, I 
might almost say, the dog’s usefulness stops. 
The average dog may find a covey, but he 
cannot hold it “fast.”” And our blue quail 
are hard to scatter. With any other than a 
