24 
GROUSE FAMILY. 
extremity of New Hampshire, and this limit, no doubt, is deter- 
mined by the length and severity of the winters which prevail 
in this rigorous climate. They seldom migrate, except to short 
distances in quest of food, and consequently often perish 
beneath deep drifts of snow, so that their existence is rendered 
impossible in the Arctic winters of our high latitudes. Indeed, 
sometimes they have been so thinned in this part of the coun- 
try that sportsmen acquainted with their local attachments 
have been known to introduce them into places for breeding 
and to prevent their threatened extermination. So sedentary 
are the habits of this interesting bird that until the flock is 
wholly routed by the unfeeling hunter they continue faithfully 
attached to the neighborhood of the spot where they have been 
raised and supported. 
Johnston, Willoughby, and Ray distinguished the Mexican 
bird by the quaint title of the “Quail’s Image.” The first 
settlers of New England also thought they saw in this familiar 
bird the Quail of the country they had relinquished. The 
two birds are, however, too different to require any critical 
comparison. Ours is even justly considered by European 
ornithologists as the type of a peculiar American genus, to 
which has been given the name of Or'iyx by Stevens, — the 
original appellation of the Quail, or Yerdix coturmx, as known 
to the ancient Greeks. The name of Colin, contracted by 
Buffon from the barbarous appellation of some Mexican spe- 
cies, has been adopted by Cuvier, Temminck, and Vieillot. 
Although there is some general resemblance between the 
Quail of the old and new continent in their external appearance, 
their habits and instincts are exceedingly different. Ihe true 
Quail is a noted bird of passage, with a favorable wind leaving 
Europe for the warmer parts of Asia at the approach of winter ; 
and with an auspicious gale again returning in the spring, in 
such amazing numbers that some of the islands of the Archi- 
pelago derived their name from their abundant visits. On the 
west coast of Naples, within the small space of four or five miles 
as many as a hundred thousand have been taken in a day by 
nets. Our Partridge, though occupying so wide an extent of the 
