QUAIL AND QUAIL SHOOTING 
319 
shooting-cart and dogs through a country, he has never 
found it worth his while to stop and beat a district full 
of weedy and dirty farms, as such never contain Quail. 
If this may lead our farmers to consider that every live 
Quail does far more good on the farm, than the shil¬ 
ling earned by his capture in the omnivorous trap; and 
therefore to prohibit their sons and farm-boys from exter¬ 
minating them at their utmost need, when food is scarce, 
and shelter hard to find, my words will not have been 
altogether wasted, nor my object unattained. 
Were I a farmer, I would hang it over my kitchen fire¬ 
place, inscribed in goodly capitals—“ Spare the Quail ! If 
you would have clean fields and goodly crops, spare the 
Quail! So shall you spare your labor.” 
And now, in a few words, we will on to their nomen¬ 
clature, their distinctive marks, their regions of inhabita¬ 
tion, seasons, haunts, and habits; and last, not least, how, 
when, and where lawfully, honorably, sportsmanly, and 
gnostically, you may and shall, kill them. 
I will not, however, here pause, long to discuss the point, 
whether they ought to be termed Quail or Partridge. 
Scientifically and practically they are neither, but a con¬ 
necting link between the two subgenera. True Partridge, 
nor true Quail, very perdix, nor very coturniz, exists at 
all anywhere in America. Our bird, an intermediate bird 
between the two, named by the naturalists Ortyx , which 
is the Greek term for true Quail, is peculiar to America, of 
which but one species, that before us, is found in the 
United States, except on the Pacific coast and in Cali¬ 
fornia, where there are many other beautiful varieties. 
Our bird is known everywhere East, and everywhere 
North-west of Pennsylvania, and in Canada, as the Quail 
—everywhere South as the Partridge. In size, plumage, 
flight, habits, and cry, it more closely resembles the Eu¬ 
ropean Quail; in some structural points, especially the 
shape and solidity of the bill, the European Partridge. On 
the whole, I deem it properly termed American Quail ; 
but whether of the two it shall be called, matters little, as 
no other bird on this continent can clash with it, so long 
as we avoid the ridicule of calling one bird by two dif¬ 
ferent terms, on the opposite sides of one river—the Dela¬ 
ware. The stupid blunder of calling the Ruffed Grouse, 
Pheasant, and Partridge, in the South and East, is a totally 
different kind of misnomer; as that bird bears no re¬ 
semblance, however distant, to either of the two species, 
and has a very good English name of his own, videlicet , 
“ Ruffed or Tippeted Grouse,” by which alone he is known 
to men of brains or of sportsmanship. With regard to our 
Quail, it is different, as he has no distinctive English name 
of his own; but is, even by naturalists, indiscriminately 
known as Quail and Partridge. The former is certainly 
the truer appellation, as he approximates more closely to 
that sub-genus. We wish much that this question could 
be settled; which we fear, now, that it never can be, from 
the want of any sporting authority , in the country, to 
pass judgment. The “ Spirit of the Times,” though still 
as well supported and as racy as ever, has, I regret 
to say, ceased to be an authority, and has become a mere 
arena wherein for every scribbler to discuss and support 
his own undigested and crude notions without considera¬ 
tion or examination; and wherein those who know the 
least, invariably fancying themselves to know the most, 
vituperate with all the spite of partisan personality, every 
person who having learned more by reading, examination 
of authorities,'and experience than they, ventures to ex¬ 
press an opinion differing from their old-time prejudices, 
and the established misnomers of provincial or sectional 
vulgarism. 
But to resume, the American Quail, or “ Partridge 
of the South,” is too well known throughout the whole 
of America, from the waters of the Kennebec on the East, 
and the Great Lakes on the North—beyond which latter, 
except on the South-western peninsula of Canada West, 
lying between Lakes Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, they are 
scarcely to be found—is too well known, almost to the 
extreme South, to need description. Their beauty, their 
familiar cry, their domestic habits during the winter, when 
they become half civilized, feeding in the barn-yards, and 
often roosting under the cattle-sheds with the poultry, 
render them familiar to all men, women, boys and fools 
throughout the regions, which they inhabit. It is stated 
by ornithologists, that they abound from Nova Scotia and 
the northern parts of Canada to Florida and the Great 
Osage villages; but this is incorrect, as they rarely are 
seen eastward of Massachusetts ; never in Nova Scotia, or 
Canada East; and range so far as Texas, and the edges of 
the great American salt desert. The adult male bird 
differs from the hen in having its chaps and a remarkable 
gorget on the throat and lower neck, pure white, bordered 
with jetty black; which parts, in the young male and the 
adult female, are bright reddish-yellow; the upper parts 
of both are beautifully dashed and freckled with chestnut 
and mahogany-brown, black, yellow, gray, and pure 
white ; the under parts pure white, longitudinally dashed 
with brownish red, and transversely streaked with black 
arrow-headed marks. The colors of the male are all 
brighter, and more definite, than in the female. 
Everywhere eastward of the Delaware the Quail is 
resident, never rambling far from the haunts in which he 
is bred. Everywhere to the westward he is in the later 
autumn migratory, moving constantly on foot, and never 
flying except when flushed or compelled to cross streams 
and water-courses, from the west eastward ; the farther 
west, the more marked is this peculiarity. 
The Quail pairs early in March; begins to lay early in 
May, in a nest made on the surface of the ground, usually 
at the bottom of a tussock or tuft of grass, her eggs being 
pure white, and from ten to thirty-two in number, though 
about fourteen is probably the avarage of the bevies. The 
period of incubation is about four weeks, the young birds 
run the instant they clip the shell, and fly readily before 
they have been hatched a fortnight. So soon as the first 
brood is well on the wing, the cock takes charge of it, 
and the hen proceeds to lay and hatch a second, the male 
bird and first brood remaining in the close vicinity, and 
the parents, I doubt not, attending the labor of incubation 
and attending the young. This I have long suspected ; 
but I saw so many proofs of it, in company of my friend 
and fellow sportsman, “Dinks,” while shooting together 
near Fort Malden, in Canada West—where we found, in 
many instances, two distinct bevies of different sizes with 
a single pair of old birds, when shooting early in Sep¬ 
tember of last year—that we were equally convinced of 
the truth of the fact, and of the unfitness of the season. 
In October, with the exception of a very few late broods, 
they are fit for the gun ; and then, while the stubbles are 
long, and the weeds and grasses rank, they lie the best and 
are the least wild on the wing. The early mornings and 
late afternoons are the fittest times for finding them, when 
they are on the run, and feeding in the edges of wheat and 
rye stubbles, or buckwheat patches bordering on wood¬ 
lands. In the middle of the day they either lie up in little 
brakes and bog-meadows, or bask on sandy banks, and 
craggy hill-sides, when they are collected into little 
huddles, and are then difficult to find. As soon as flushed, 
they pitch into the thickest neighboring covert, whether 
bog-meadow, briar-patch, cedar-brake, ravine, or rough 
corn-stubble, they can find, their flight being wild, rapid, 
and impetuous, but rarely very long, or well sustained. 
As they unquestionably possess the mysterious power, 
