AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
285 
TO A WILD DEER. 
A fine live Deer was run down recently in the borough 
of Columbia, Lancaster county. It is supposed that it was 
driven in by some of the neighbouring, dogs, and when 
taken was much exhausted. 
Why didst thou leave thy native woods, 
Child of the forest! here to roam, 
And quit the murmur of the floods 
That revel in thy mountain home? 
Why did’st thou thus resign thy glen 
To die amid the haunts of men ? 
There’s freedom on the rocks and hills, 
A liberty that nature gives, 
Whose very inspiration fills 
The heart of every thing that lives, 
And seems to throw a noble air 
O’er every form that wanders there. 
Nay, e’en the very trees that rear 
Their branches to the summer sky, 
In their wind-shaken leaves appear 
To have a sense of majesty, 
And lift their heads as though they felt 
They grew in scenes where freedom dwelt 
There couldst thou lift thy antlered brow, 
And pace the wilds in conscious pride, 
Climbing the steeps where wild flowers grow, 
Or plunging in the torrent’s tide, 
Daring alike to scale or swim, 
With eye unmoved and dauntless limb. 
The crags and peaks were all thine own, 
The rivers and the rocks were thine, 
Thou wert a monarch on thy throne, 
Treading the cliffs where sun-beams shine; 
The monarch of the hills wert thou — 
Chief of the proud and antlered brow! 
Along the misty valley’s shade 
Thy footstep roamed at break of morn, 
The echoes of thy native glade 
Ne’er heard the clang of- hound or horn. 
The blackbird’s note, the wolf’s loud bay 
Were all that met thee on thy way. 
Wild nature was around thee there 
In all its rich, romantic grace; 
4 C 
It seemed as though the very air 
Partook the spirit of , the place; 
Whate’er it was in other eyes, 
To thee it seemed a paradise. 
Then why did’st thou forsake thy wild, 
Amid the haunts of men to stray? 
The rocks that on thy hills are pil’d 
Are not more hard — more bleak than they. 
Thou’st come from sunny glen and sky, 
By human hearths at last to die! 
Like thee, poor deer! when genius leaves 
The quiet home it- once had known, 
And from the ingrate world receives 
The meed of cold neglect alone, — 
Like thee it turns away in pain, 
And wishes for the shades again. 
C. W. T. 
Gentlemen: 
I observed in one of your Nos. of the Cabinet, an account 
of an attempt to domesticate the Partridge. If an attempt 
of a similar kind, though not of equal success, made by my- 
self, with the common Quail ,* during the fall and winter of 
1830, is of any service to your work, you have my entire 
liberty to use it. I had been passing a few weeks in the 
country, about fifteen miles from this city, and was out one 
morning in pursuit of woodcock, when my dog came upon 
a dead point, in an open meadow, upon a bird not twelve 
feet beyond him. Surprised at the apparent tameness or 
stupidity of the bird, I approached with a view of taking it, 
if possible, alive; and I was able to advance within about 
six feet of her, before she flew. I then perceived it was a 
Quail upon her nest, which contained fifteen young, appa- 
rently not more than a day old. I thought this would be an 
excellent opportunity of making an experiment I had long 
wished for — of domesticating the Quail; and, therefore, not- 
withstanding my compunctions of conscience in thus bereav- 
ing the distressed mother of her offspring, I took them up, 
nest and all, and carried them home, accompanied by their 
mother, who was continually uttering the most violent out- 
cries, as if to reproach me with my cruelty. When I arrived 
at home I put the nest, with all its contents, in a large cage, 
and suspended it from a limb of an apple tree, out of the 
way of cats and other enemies of the feathered tribe. I 
then retired to a distance, leaving the door of the cage open, 
for the purpose of observing, whether the mother would 
* One is the Quail of the North, and the other the Partridge of the South. 
