128 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
general dicta, ascribing these habits invariably to this or that 
species, much confusion and inconvenience may be attributed. 
As an instance, I will merely state here, what I shall go into 
more largely hereafter, that the common Quail, Ortyx Virginia- 
na, which is to the Westward distinctly a bird of passage, 
with easily defined habits of migration, eastward of the Dela¬ 
ware River is unquestionably stationary; and that from this 
undoubted fact, a question has arisen whether there were not 
two different species; and, that hypothesis proved untenable, 
a doubt, among the less enlightened of Eastern sportsmen, whe¬ 
ther the naturalists and travellers who have insisted on the 
migratory habits of the Quail, especially on the Ohio and other 
large western rivers, have not ignorantly or wilfully falsified 
the truth. 
Such mistakes should be guarded against with care, and all 
conflicting statements, as made by candid and earnest enquirers, 
regarded with the utmost liberality and allowance; which, I 
regret to say, is too seldom practised by naturalists, who fre¬ 
quently appear to regard all who differ from themselves, much 
in the light of enemies, or of heretics, with whom no terms are 
to be kept. 
The last water-fowl, of which I shall give a minute descrip¬ 
tion as falling under the head of Upland Game, is the 
PINTAIL DUCK. 
Anas Acuta — Wilson. Le Canard a Longue Queue — Bnssott. 
The Winter Duck , Sprigtail , Pigeontail , vulgo. 
u Male 29.36. Female 22^.34. 
“ From Texas throughout the interior to the Columbia 
River, and along the Atlantic coast to Maine, during the 
winter, and early spring. Breeds in the Arctic regions. 
Abundant. 
