17 
1874. 
Ortyx virginianus. 
Middlesex County, Iilass. 
Sopt,25. A large brood of young about the size of field mice 
accompanied by both parents. The female ran along in 
front of our dog risin g and flying a fev/ yards at a time. 
Oct. 23. Started a small bevy in Concord; wo distinctly saw 
them alight in an open hueklyberry bus pasture, but al~ 
though supplied with tv/o good dogs, succeeded in starting 
only one of them. 
A small bevy basking in the sun in a little shelter¬ 
ed nook byvthe roadside. When flushed about half of 
them alighted in an open mowing field although this was 
bordered on both sides by dense thickets. Here they lay 
very closely although giving out no scent. 
Started a bevy of ten which lit on an oak knoll in 
a meadow. He could find only three of them although the 
remainder v^ere aftervmrds heard in the very spot wo had 
beaten so carefully. I have seen many clear cases o#- 
this season of this birds power of withholding its scent. 
The more a bevy is hunted and its numbers thinned the 
more closely do the survivors lie and the more persis¬ 
tently do they hold their scent. 
1875. 
Heard a male calling “Bob White" in NswtonviHe. 
Started a bevy of five in Waltham on the evening of 
6 , 
A beevy of ten by the roadside, 
file through a break in a stone wall 
were females. 
running in single 
Seven of them 
June 16. 
of Waltham easily kept along ahead 
of my horse for some distance without using its wings al- 
taoMgh I was going at aspeod of at least ton miles In 
Started a large bevy in Belmont. They flew a long 
alighted ^'histle almost as soon as they 
, ^ in Belmont separated when started 
half going one way and half the other; the wind was 
fuaTnsf ^ hurricane and the birds that started 
a hundred yarL".''^'*'' Progress and alighted within 
Brought home two wing-broken birds shot in Belmont 
ter alive in a cage through the following win- 
loose in^ 
