THE REFERENDUM 



469 



QUAIL SHOOTING IN PENNSYLVANIA. 



BY JOHN BRIDGES. 



The shooting season in Pennsylvania opens 

 for quail and pheasant or ruffed grouse No- 

 vember 15, which is early by fifteen days, as 

 very little of the standing corn is cut by this 

 date. It is mostly hot and the grass still 

 green, which makes the scent poor, prevent- 

 ing good work by the dogs and there are 

 far too many half-grown birds. The condi- 

 tions, unfavorable as they are, we are off to 

 the fields quite early, and after a short drive 

 of from two to five miles the dogs are 

 dropped and generally after half an hour's 

 ranging we notice one of the dogs "giving 

 sign," and within a few rods the beautiful 

 setter has stiffened to a staunch point, backed 

 by the other dogs, and within a few yards of 

 "Brittas" nose lie the covey, often not off 

 their roost. They are then flushed, and hav- 

 ing never been shot into, make a short flight 

 to the nearest thicket or scatter in the stand- 

 ing corn. If they settle in the corn it is gen- 

 erally useless to further hunt that particular 

 covey, for one can rarely get an open shot, 

 and likely the farmer is cutting and shocking 

 his corn, which makes it hazardous, so we 

 leave the covey for later sport and go a few 

 fields farther on, where, we again' send the 

 dogs out, and within a reasonable time have 

 another "covey up." This time they fly to the 

 thickets or timber, and then it is that the true 

 qualities of a bird dog can be really tested. I 

 once saw my setter "Britta" pointing a scat- 

 tered bird through a hedge fence. My gun- 

 ning partner, who was the proud possessor of 

 a magnificent looking English setter which 

 had just been returned to him from an ex- 

 pensive trainer, wished to show how nicely 

 his dog would back-stand. It was some little 

 time before he could get his dog to "come- 

 in," and after actually running this dog be- 

 tween "Britta's" rigid form and the bird, 

 which was on the opposite side of the hedge 

 roe, this lovely looking animal, with his fine 

 feather and thick head, blundered madly on 

 and never knew "Britta" was pointing, much 

 less the presence of Bob White which I 

 flushed not over three yards from "Britta's" 

 nose and killed. The remainder of the day 

 this bench-show dog never made a single 

 back-stand or point and would chase every- 

 thing in sight. 



If the opening of the season is hot and dry, 

 which is usually the case, the 'swampy 

 grounds and fields with small streams run- 

 ning through must be hunted, giving prece- 

 dence to the stubble fields, in which Bob White 

 prefers to feed morning and late afternoon, 

 while midday is spent near a wood preening 

 their feathers or dusting. Later in the season 

 we hunt stubble, corn fields, old grass fields 

 and clearings, in the order named, while, to- 

 wards the closing of the season, from the 1st 

 to the 15th of December, Bob White will be 

 likely found in the thick, high, grass-grown 



gullies with timbered sides of pine and spruce 

 surrounded by feeding fields. I once raised 

 four coveys in two of these gullies not over 

 200 yards apart, and had 34 shots within an 

 hour, very few of the birds lying for the 

 dog, as the ground was covered with snow. 



In Pennsylvania we prefer to hunt with a 

 brace of setters trained directly different. 

 One, a very wide ranger, to locate the coveys ; 

 the other, a very slow worker, to "point" 

 the scattered birds. I have never seen the two 

 qualities possessed by one dog. The nervous 

 high-strung wide ranger thinks it too tame a 

 sport to come down and nose over every foot 

 of ground which is necessary to find a single 

 scattered bird, and certainly Bob White must 

 possess the power of withholding his scent 

 for a time after being flushed; and to pick 

 them up takes a very close-working dog. I 

 once flushed a smail covey of eight birds and 

 saw them alight in a bunch of thick grass not 

 over 75 yards distant. We went directly to 

 the spot, and alt'iough we had a brace of tried 

 and true setters they could only find one bird. 

 After waiting half an hour these same dogs 

 picked up every bird, but they laid so close 

 that my gunning partner actually picked up 

 with his hands a large cock bird. On an aver- 

 age the coveys contain from 12 to 20 birds, 

 rarely more. 



A highly respected elder of the blue-stock- 

 ing type once told me of a most remarkable 

 point that his pointer dog made, and I have 

 no reason to question the veracity of the blue 

 stocking. On a frosty morning some few 

 years since, when Bob White was more plen- 

 tiful, Blue Stocking took his remarkable 

 pointer for a short hunt, and while watching 

 his dog work, saw him jump over quite a 

 high fence and land directly on his back, feet 

 and nose uppermost and motionless, so Blue 

 Stocking, thinking the. dog had simply killed 

 himself, climbed the fence, when he noticed 

 the dog's eyes fairly dancing and displaying 

 an unusual intelligence, but at the same time 

 remaining perfectly quiet, not moving a mus- 

 cle of his body with the exception of a slight 

 wag of his tail. When suddenly up went a 

 beautiful covey of Bob Whites not three feet 

 from the dog's nose, after which the dog 

 most suddenly returned to life. I have seen 

 my dogs point through a hedge fence, across 

 a narrow stream, and hang on a rail fence, 

 but the point of the Blue Stocking's pointer 

 holds the record. 



Most of us know Bob White's main protec- 

 tion lies in the close similarity of their feath- 

 ers to their surroundings, and so closely do 

 their feathers match the bare ground that I 

 once saw my setter "Britta" make a point 

 right out in the open, and for ten feet around 

 not even a tuft of grass could be seen, noth- 

 ing but ground and stones ; but look where 

 we might, and for fully ten minutes we 

 strained ,our optics, but could not detect the 

 particular location of that bird, which was 



