THE VIRGINIAN QUAIL OR PARTRIDGE. 103 
become very domesticated, but always desert in the 
first spring, when the season of incubation com- 
mences. * 
Among the many methods taken to capture these 
birds, one related by Audubon seems eminently suc- 
cessful. A cylindrical net is used thirty or forty 
feet in height, and about two in diameter, except at 
the mouth, where it is wider. This is fixed to the 
ground with the mouth open, and two additional 
pieces of net are fixed at each side, to enlarge as it 
were the entrance- Into this the birds are driven 
by a number of persons on horseback, who surround 
the covey when discovered. Fifteen or twenty par- 
tridges are thus often caught at one driving, and 
sometimes many hundreds during the day.f 
The Virginian partridge has been attempted to be 
introduced in several parts of the European conti- 
nent, but we are uncertain with what success. They 
have also been tried in some of the English counties. 
Our next Plate exhibits one of the most beautiful 
of the genus — 
* Wilson’s North American Ornithology. f Auduhon* 
