318 
graham’s magazine. 
In this month, the beautiful Ruffed Grouse, that moun¬ 
tain-loving, and man-shunning hermit, Steals down from 
his wild haunts amopgih«<pi»t rhododendrons, and ever¬ 
green rock-calmias, to nearer vimodskirts, and cedar-brakes 
margining the red buckwheat stubbles, to be found there 
by the staunch dogs, and brought to bag by the quick 
death-shot, “ at morn and dewy eve,” without the toil and 
torture, often most vain and vapid, of scaling miles on 
miles of mountain-ledges, struggling through thickets of 
impenetrable verdure among the close-set stems of hem¬ 
lock, pine, or juniper, only to hear the startled rush of an 
unseen pinion, and to pause, breathless, panting, and out¬ 
done, to curse, while you gather breath for a renewed effort, 
the bird which haunts such covert, and the covert which 
gives shelter to such birds. 
In this month, if no untimely frost, or envious snow flury 
come, premature, to chase him to the sunny swamps of 
Carolina and the rice-fields of Georgia, the plump, white- 
fronted, pink-legged autumn Woodcock, flaps up from the 
alder-brake with his shrill whistle, and soars away, away, 
on a swift and powerful wing above the russet tree-tops, 
to be arrested only by the instinctive eye and rapid finger 
of the genuine sportsman ; and no longer as in faint July to 
be bullied and bungled to death by every German city pot¬ 
hunter, or every pottering rustic school-boy, equipped and 
primed for murder, on his Saturday’s half holyday. 
In this month, the brown-jacketed American hare, which 
our folk will persist in calling Rabbit —though it neither 
lives in warrens, nor burrows habitually under ground, 
and though it breeds not every month in the year, which 
are the true distinctive characteristics of the Rabbit—is 
in his prime of conditions, the leverets of the season, 
plump and well grown; and the old bucks and does, re¬ 
cruited after the breeding season, in high health and 
strength, and now legitimate food for gunpowder, legiti¬ 
mate quarry for the chase of the merry beagles. 
In this month especially, the Quail, the best-loved and 
choicest object of the true sportsman’s ambition ; the bird 
which alone affords more brilliant and exciting sport than 
all the rest beside ; the bravest on the wing, and the best 
on the board ; the swiftest and strongest flyer of any 
feathered game ; the most baffling to find, the most trouble¬ 
some to follow up, and when followed up and found, the 
most difficult to kill in style ; the beautiful American 
Quail is in his highest force and feather; and in this 
month, according to the laws of all the States, even the 
most rigorous and stringent in preservation, killable 
legitimately under statute. 
In New York, generally, the close-time for the Quail 
ends with October, and he may not be slain until the first 
day of November; in New Jersey, ortygicide commences 
on the 25th of October, in Massachusetts and Con¬ 
necticut on some day between the 15th of the past and the 
first of the present month ; in Pennsylvania, Delaware and 
Maryland, where they are something more forward, as 
breeding earlier in the season than in the Eastern States, 
on the first of October; and in Canada West, where they 
are exceedingly abundant, on the first of September; 
which is, for many reasons, entirely too early, as here¬ 
after I shall endeavor to demonstrate. 
In my own opinion, the first of November, and even the 
middle of October, are too late for the termination of 
the Quail’s close-time, inasmuch as five-sevenths of 
the broods in ordinarily forward seasons are full-grown 
and strong on the wing, as well as all the crops off the 
ground, by the first of October; and although the late, 
second, or third broods may be undersized, they are still 
well able to take care of themselves in case the parent 
birds are killed ; whereas, on account of their immature 
size, they are safe from the legitimate shot; and, on account 
of their unsaleability in market to the restaurant, from 
the poaching pot-shot also. 
I should, therefore, myself, be strongly inclined to ad¬ 
vocate the adoption of one common day, and that day the 
first of October, for the close-time of all our upland game ; 
the English Snipe alone excepted. Touching the reasons 
for postponing the day of Woodcock-shooting, a notice 
will be found in our July number, and an extended discus¬ 
sion in my Field Sports, vol. I. pp. 169 to 200. Of the 
Quail, in regard to this point, I have said enough here, 
unless this; that, in my opinion, there is far more need to 
protect them from the trap during the wintry snows, than 
from the gun in the early autumn ; the latter cannot pos¬ 
sibly at any time exterminate the race; the former not 
only easily may, but actually does all but annihilate the 
breed, whenever the snow falls and lies deep during any 
weeks of December, during the whole of which month the 
pursuit and sale of this charming little bird is legal. 
Could I have my way, the close-time for Quail should 
end on the last day of September; and the shooting season 
end on the twenty-fourth day of December; before which 
date snow now rarely lies continuously in New Jersey, 
Southern New York, or Pennsylvania. Why I would 
anticipate the termination of the close-time, in reference 
to the Ruffed Grouse, I shall state at length, when I come 
to treat of that noble bird, in our December issue ; to 
which month I have attributed it, because it is then that 
it is, though in my opinion, it ought not to be, most fre¬ 
quently seen on our tables. While on the topic of pre¬ 
servation, I will mention a fact, which certainly is not 
widely, much less generally known, among farmers; 
namely, that this merry and domestic little bird is one of 
his best friends and assistants in the cultivation of his 
lands. During nine or ten months of the year he subsists 
entirely on the seeds of many of the most troublesome and 
noxious weeds and grasses, which infest the fields, more 
especially those of the ragwort, the dock, and the briar. 
It is believed, I might almost say ascertained, that he never 
plucks any kind of grain, even his own loved buckwheat 
when ripe, from the stalk, but only gleans the fallen seeds 
from the stubbles after harvest, so that while he in no¬ 
thing deteriorates the harvest to be ingathered, he tends 
in the highest degree to the preservation of clean and un¬ 
weeded fields and farms; indeed, when it is taken into 
consideration that each individual Quail consumes daily 
nearly two gills of weed-seed, it will be at once evident 
that a few bevies of these little birds, carefully and assi¬ 
duously preserved on a farm, will do more toward keep¬ 
ing it free of weeds, than the daily annual labor of adozen 
farm-servants. This preservation will not be counter¬ 
acted or injured by a moderate and judicious use of the ' 
gun in the autumnal months ; for the bevies need thinning, 
especially of the cock-birds, which invariably outnumber 
the hens, and which, if unable to pair, from a want of 
mates, form into little squads or companies of males, 
which remain barren, and become the deadly enemies of 
the young cocks of the following year, beating them off 
and dispersing them; though, strange to say, they will 
themselves never mate again, nor do aught, after remain¬ 
ing unpaired during one season, to propagate their species. 
The use of the trap, on the contrary, destroying whole 
bevies at a swoop, where the gun, even in the most skillful 
hands, rarely much more than decimates them, may, in a 
single winter’s day, if many traps be set, destroy the whole 
stocking of a large farm for years, if not forever. I have 
myself invariably remarked, since my attention was first 
called to the fact, that those farms which are best stocked 
with Quail, are invariably the cleanest of weeds; and a 
right good sportsman, and good friend of mine, working 
on the same base per contra, says that, in driving his 
