Among the valley quail 
UAIL-SHOOTING in Southern 
California is vastly unlike the 
sport one gets with quail in the 
Eastern, Mid-Western, Western and 
Southern States of the Union. “Bob 
White,” the representative of the quail 
family found in these States, is a 
reasonable bird as a rule, usually will- 
ing to co-operate with the hunter and 
a staunch pointer or setter, and not 
given to exasperating tricks which out- 
wit both dogs and men. Who that has 
followed quail-shooting in New York, 
Illinois, North Carolina or Kansas, but 
remembers the experience. The “point”, 
the rise of the bevy, the first shots, the 
flight of the bevy, the main flock gen- 
erally pitching in one direction; the 
alighting of the birds, the leisurely ad- 
vance of men and dogs, the successive 
“points” as the dogs reach the place 
where the birds have alighted and scat- 
tered, and the considerate wisdom of 
leaving some of the bevy to rear birds 
for the next year. 
In some of this cover good shots and 
good dogs can clean up the last “Bob 
White” of a bevy, if hoggishly inclined. 
But they do these things differently in 
Southern California. I shall never for- 
get my first glimpse of a bevy, or 
rather an enormous flock of California 
valley quail. There were not less than 
250 birds, rising in dispersing clouds, 
groups and later-rising birds, like the 
spokes of a shattered wheel, and pitch- 
ing over the foot-hills of the densest 
cover. As scores of the quail dropped 

into the brush I walked slowly forward 
to where I had seen dozens of them 
light, and being without a dog, stepped 
into the chaparral expecting to have 
fast and furious sport. 
I kicked up just one bird, and got 
him with the second barrel, after pound- 
ing around the brush for over an hour. 
A second hour of hard work brought 
me three birds, scratches and torn 
clothes galore from the rough travel- 
ing. The big flock had disappeared. 
California valley quail have a habit of 
rising, scattering, alighting; rising, 
scattering and alighting, running a 
hundred yards or so between flights, and 
then settling down to a steady run 
which may take them a half mile or a 
mile from where they first arose. If 
they had been hunted very much they 
may arise the first time 100 yards 
away, and fly a mile before they alight. 
They always run when they alight, un- 
less they have been surrounded and a 
lot of shooting in the air above fright- 
ens them into lying close. 
"T HEY are infinitely more elusive 
than fleas, and instinctively seek 
the densest and most thorny cover 
wherever they can find it; or they will 
vary this by flying to the tops of the 
low mountains adjoining the foothills 
and hug the scant cover to be found 
there. They are not going to be shot 
if they can help it. And yet, given a 
knowledge of their habits and eccen- 
tricities, most fascinating sport can be 
Blue Quail 
in 
the Foothill 
Country 
Tho Related to Bob White, 
the Western Birds Furnish 
a Totally Different Kind 
of Sport 
By JAMES L. DARRELL 
had with them, always remembering 
that a good retriever is a prime neces- 
sity in the game. 
HREE of us, and “the kid” boarded 
a “stem-winding” automobile one 
crisp December morning and trekked 
south-westward from Los Angeles for 
the foothill country in Riverside County. 
A three hours’ run brought us to where 
we drew in by a roadside spring, and 
driving in a trifle further to a clump 
of oaks, we halted and got out. We 
were in a little valley. On one side the 
land sloped away fairly level to a slight 
rise showing fields and stubble. On the 
opposite side it was uncultivated, some 
of the ground being covered with high 
weeds adjoining scrub oak trees, and 
the rest thick, brushy cover adjoining 
low foot-hills. In a country like that, 
quail often feed in the fields and stubble 
early in the morning, and retire to the 
dense cover later in the day. 
We had been told by the Camping, 
Fishing and Hunting Bureau of the 
Automobile Club of Southern California 
that we would find quail in this valley, 
several big bevies have been reported 
in that vicinity. Our expectations were 
keyed up to concert pitch. We were 
all pretty well “up” in “quailology” as 
it applied to the valley birds and con- 
fident that we could outwit their man- 
euvres if we could find them. After 
combing the stubbles and the weed- 
fields to the left without any results ex- 
cept flushing scores of doves and doz- 
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