QUAIL AND QUAIL 
SHOOTING. 
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “ FIELD SPORTS,” “ FISH AND FISHING,” ETC. 
THE AMERICAN QUAIL, OR VIRGINIA PARTRIDGE. 
(Ortyx Virginianus. Perdix Virginianus.) 
November is upon us—liearty, brown, healthful No¬ 
vember, harbinger of his best joys to the ardent sportsman, 
and best beloved to him of all the months of the great 
annual cycle ; November, with its clear, bracing, western 
breezes; its sun, less burning, but how far more beautiful 
than that of fierce July, as tempered now and softened by 
the rich, golden haze of Indian summer, quenching his 
torrent rays in its mellow, liquid lustre, and robing the 
distant hilLs with wreaths of purple light, half mist, half 
shrouded sunshine; November, with its wheat and buck¬ 
wheat stubbles, golden or bloody red ; with its sere maize 
leaves rustling in the breeze, whence the quail pipes in¬ 
cessant; with its gay woodlands flaunting in their many- 
colored garb of glory; with its waters more clearly calm, 
more brilliantly transparent than those of any other season; 
November, when the farmer’s toils have rendered their 
reward, and his reaped harvests glut his teeming garners, 
so that he too, like the pent denizen of swarming cities, 
may take his leisure with his gun “ in the wide vale, or 
by the deep wood-side,” and enjoy the rapture of those 
sylvan sports which he may not participate in sweltering 
July, in which they are, alas ! permitted by ill-considered 
legislation, in every other state, save thine, honest and 
honorable Massachusetts.* 
In truth there is no period of the whole year so well 
adapted, both by the seasonable climate, and the state of 
the country, shorn of its crops, and not now to be injured 
by the sportsman’s steady stride, or the gallop of his high¬ 
bred setters, both by the abundance of game in the cleared 
stubbles and the sere woodlands, and by the aptitude of 
the brisk, bracing weather for the endurance of fatigue, 
and the enjoyment of manful exercise, as this our favorite 
November. 
* A law was passed, during the spring of the present year, 
in that respectable and truly conservative State, by which 
the murder of unfledged July Woodcock, by cockney 
gunners was prohibited ; and the close time judiciously 
prolonged until September. The debate was remarkable 
for two things, the original genius with which the Hon. 
Member for Westboro’ persisted that Snipe are Wood¬ 
cock, and Woodcock Snipe, all naturalists to the contrary 
notwithstanding; and the pertinent reply to the complaint 
of a city member, that to abolish July shooting would rob 
the city sportsman of his sport—viz., that in that case it 
would give it to the farmer. Marry, say we, amen, so 
be it! 
