THE COMMON OR GREY QUAIL. 1 39 



as they do, no human being can remember wJiere the birds fell. 

 In the second place, if not killed outright, Quail hide up in such 

 a way (running freely into the rats' holes so common, at any 

 rate in the Punjab) that no man can find them. With steady 

 dogs put into the field as you leave it, and made to work in it 

 until they have retrieved the full number counted, the sport is 

 most satisfactory. 



When flushed, Quail rarely fly far; in moderate-sized fields, 

 especially during the hotter part of the day, fully half drop 

 within fifty yards, and I do not think I ever saw a Quail, even 

 one that had had two barrels fired at it, fly for more than three 

 or four hundred yards. 



Did any of my readers ever try Quail-shooting in good high 

 ripe Jowar or Bajera well over their heads ? 



Capital sport it is ! " Absurd" ! you say ; " why, how can you 

 see the birds ?" Very well indeed, as I will explain. First you 

 look out for the machan whence the people watch the 

 crops to keep off the birds, which is almost always at one edge 

 of the field, and where that abuts on some barren plot or bare 

 field intended for the spring crops. If this particular one is 

 not so situated, you move on to one that is. Then you put your 

 beaters — and they should be numerous and each have a stick — 

 in at the opposite side of the field. Then you ascend the 

 " machan" light a cigar, and, as the Walrus says to the 

 Oysters, " admire the view." 



In the meantime the beaters, if they know their trade, will 

 beat very slowly through the field in a more or less semicircular 

 order, the concavity towards the machan, not talking, but 

 rustling vigorously about with their sticks at the bases of the 

 dry stalks. Probably the first thing that distracts your atten- 

 tion from the surrounding scenery is a tremendous rush and a 

 general hoorush (the best trained beaters are but men!), and, 

 swiftly parting the waving stems, you see an old black buck 

 coming at a headlong pace towards you, his nose straight in front 

 of him, and his horns laid well back on his shoulders. You don't 

 move (and even if you did, when he was close to you he would 

 see nothing above him), but just as he emerges in the open, 

 if not more than twenty-five yards distant, you roll him over 

 with a buck shot or S. S. G. cartridge in the neck. If further 

 and you have a rifle, it ought to come (though it sometimes 

 don't) to the same thing. Then your Pathan, who has been 

 crouching at the base of the machan, glides out and solemnly 

 cuts that buck's throat in the name of the Almighty. 



The beaters have by this time repented of their enthusiasm ; 

 they are dimly conscious that that " hoorush" may not be viewed 

 in a favourable light, and that it would be well for them if the 

 " Protector of the Poor" aloft (on the machan I mean) got a 

 good many shots before they again interviewed him. As they 

 advance, perhaps two or three greys, a whole brood of Pea-chicks, 



