UPLAND SHOOTING. 
231 
remarkable if, with a gun that scatters its charge, even a 
good shot miss this bird even at a short range; and that at 
thirty or forty paces the very best guns, aimed with perfect 
precision, fail frequently of killing clean. 
The Quail is a very brave bird, moreover. He will carry 
off a great quantity of shot, if not lodged in a vital part, and 
will frequently, even when mortally wounded, particularly if 
shot through the brain or heart, and going before the wind, fly 
till life leaves him in mid air, and even after that will be pro¬ 
pelled by the rapidity of his previous motion and the buoyancy 
of his still extended wings, for many yards farther in a descend¬ 
ing line. 
A singular instance of this occurred to myself while shooting 
in the Highlands of the Hudson, nearly opposite to West 
Point, with two friends, in November, 1839. We were beating 
a bare field on one of the lower hills of that chain, in which 
were several shallow ravines lying nearly parallel to each other, 
pointing transversely downward. 
I was in the lowest of three gulleys with a brace of dogs, and 
perhaps a hundred yards in advance of my companions, each 
of whom, with one dog, was making good another parallel 
gorge. 
The wind was blowing keenly and coldly on our backs, and 
before us lay a long range of open fields sloping steeply toward 
the river, with a piece of young woodland, bounded by a stone 
wall on the hither side, beyond them'. 
Finding no game myself, I was suddenly put on the alert by 
the quick shout, “ mark ! mark!” from behind, somewhat to my 
left; and in the next moment a large bevy of birds, which had 
been raised by my friends and circled round my back, passed 
me within twenty paces to the right. 
It struck me at the time, that I never had seen birds fly so 
fast; they had already traversed sufficient space to have gained 
the full momentum of their own velocity, and had in their favor 
all the impetus that the swift wind, directly before which they 
were flying, could give them. I was shooting with a gun that 
