Were I a farmer, I would hang it over my kitchen fireplace, 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 nomenclature, their distinctive marks, their regions of inhabitation, 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 connecting link between the two subgenera. True Partridge, nor true Quail, very perdix, nor very coturnix, 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 California, 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 European 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 different terms, on the opposite sides of one river—the Delaware. 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 resemblance, 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 consideration 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 express 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 average 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 September 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 woodlands. 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, whether voluntary or involuntary, of holding in their scent, for a short time after alighting, and are difficultly found again till they have run, I recommend it, as by far the better way, to mark them down well, and beat for another bevy, until you hear them calling to each other; then lose no time in flushing them again, when they are sure to disperse, and you to have sport with them.
Myself, I prefer setters for their pursuit, as more dashing, more enduring, and abler to face briars—others prefer pointers, as steadier on less work, and better able to fag without water. Either, well broke, are good—ill broke, or unbroke, worthless. Still give me setters—Russian or Irish specially! Quail fly very fast, and strong, especially in covert, and require the whole charge to kill them dead and clean. At cross shots, shoot well ahead; at rising shots, well above; and at straight-away shots, a trifle below your birds; and an oz. ¼ of No. 8, early, and of No. 7, late, will fetch them in good style. And so good sport to you, kind reader; for this, if I err not, is doomed to be a crack Quail season.
| [2] | A law was passed, during the spring of the present year, in that respectable and truly conservative State, by which the murder of unfledged July Woodcock, by cockney gunners was prohibited; and the close time judiciously prolonged until September. The debate was remarkable for two things, the original genius with which the Hon. Member for Westboro’ persisted that Snipe are Woodcock, and Woodcock Snipe, all naturalists to the contrary notwithstanding; and the pertinent reply to the complaint of a city member, that to abolish July shooting would rob the city sportsman of his sport—viz., that in that case it would give it to the farmer. Marry, say we, amen, so be it! |