Quail

“ So, when my lone quail sat on a rock in the pasture, tipped his head back a little, swelled his white throat and whistled, round and clear, I went out to meet him, scanning the sky meanwhile for a change of weather. The sky of the day before had been like a brass bowl shut down over the gasping land. Shrubs of the upland hung their leaves piteously, the tougher herbs wilted, and the tenderer ones dried up and died. ”

“ A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose, and the occasional whistle of a quail; or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity. ”

“ Sitting in cool shade I hear
Calling quail.
Softly as if half asleep
Murmur all the springs and brooks;
When among the boughs the sun
Shines on waters, quick they run,
And like deer, with frightened looks,
Wildly leap. ”

“ The blue grouse and mountain quail are plentiful in the woods and the sage-hen on the plains about the northern base of the mountain, while innumerable smaller birds enliven and sweeten every thicket and grove. ”

“ About the time the burrowers and all that feed upon them are addressing themselves to sleep, great flocks pour down the trails with that peculiar melting motion of moving quail, twittering, shoving, and shouldering. They splatter into the shallows, drink daintily, shake out small showers over their perfect coats, and melt away again into the scrub, preening and pranking, with soft contented noises. ”

“ In this month especially, the Quail, the best-loved and choicest object of the true sportsman’s ambition; the bird which alone affords more brilliant and exciting sport than all the rest beside; the bravest on the wing, and the best on the board; the swiftest and strongest flyer of any feathered game; the most baffling to find, the most troublesome to follow up, and when followed up and found, the most difficult to kill in style; the beautiful American Quail is in his highest force and feather ”

“ Thousands of doves whistled away; thousands of smaller birds rustled and darted before our advancing lines; tens of thousands of blackbirds sprinkled the bare branches of single trees, uttering the many-throated multitude call; underneath all this light and joyous life the business-like little quail darted away in their bullet flight.
Always they bore across our front to the left; for on that side, paralleling our course, ran a long ravine or "dry slough." ”

“ I dare say you have sometimes seen quails alive in a poulterer's shop, where they are often displayed in long narrow cages, and are sadly crowded together. The quail is a migratory bird, except in those countries blessed with an equable temperature, such as Italy, Portugal, etc., where it is to be found in all seasons. ”

“ The quails, when migrating, fly so near the ground that they are very easily knocked down and secured. The nest of the quail is very simple. It consists merely of a few dried sticks in a wheat-field, and contains from twelve to eighteen pretty little green and brown eggs. The quail itself is very prettily coloured with black, chestnut, yellow, and white, and the males have a black collar round their throats. The old Romans would not eat the flesh of the quail, because it feeds on the grains of a poisonous plant. But we moderns are not so scrupulous, and find it very delicious food. ”

“ The greatest peril that besets quail in the North is the occasional midwinter blizzard, followed by intense cold. The quail at night huddle close together on the ground, their tails touching and their heads pointing out in a circle. ”

“ Thousands of men and boys have seen a mother quail flop and flutter and play wounded, to lead the dangerous boy away from her brood of little quail mites, and work the ruse so daringly and successfully as to save both her babies and herself. ”

“ Probably the life of no other of our winter birds is so full of hardship as is that of the quail, Bob White.
In the early summer the quails are hatched in broods of from ten to twenty, and live as families until the pairing season the next spring. The chicks keep close to the neighborhood of the home nest, feeding and roosting together, under the guidance of the parent birds. ”

“ But with respect to the quail Aristotle says, "The quail is a migratory bird, with cloven feet, and he does not make a nest, but lies in the dust; and he covers over his hole with sticks for fear of hawks; and then the hen lays her eggs in the hole." But Alexander the Myndian says, in the second book of his treatise on Animals, "The female quail has a thin neck, not having under its chin the same black feathers which the male has. ”

“ They shall have a great wire-covered range and all conveniences of an outdoor home, and I'm going to keep on raising them and experimenting and trying until I have a really tame quail, one with atrophied wings and a trusting heart. That we'll do, dear, and coming generations shall rise up and call us blessed. ”

“ A quail a day old will fall upon its side with a chip or small stone or bit of grass firmly clutched in its tiny claws to hide its body, and remain perfectly motionless at the approach of a human being, but will take no alarm at the passing of a squirrel or a rabbit. ”

“ If you have ever disturbed a mountain quail with a brood of young, you will never forget what an interesting sight the mother presented as she strutted back and forth on a log, warning her little ones to keep out of sight. ”

“ The Quail, on the contrary, after it has flown for any distance, is so completely tired out that when it alights it crouches to the earth, and will allow itself to be picked up by hand. It has even been trodden to death under a horse's feet. ”

“ Flocks of white-wing doves hurtled past them, heading for the water-holes; quail called from the slopes; a deer broke from a thicket, and after a few short, stiff-legged jumps, headed up a slope, head cocked back, walking jerkily. ”

“ The quail flew low and hard, offering in the gathering twilight and against the neutral-coloured earth marks worthy of good shooting. At last we turned back to our waiting team. The dusk was coming over the land, and the "shadow of the earth" was marking its strange blue arc in the east. As usual the covey was now securely scattered. Of a thousand or so birds we had bagged forty-odd; and yet of the remainder we would have had difficulty in flushing another dozen. It is the mystery of the quail, and one that the sportsman can never completely comprehend. ”

“ Quails they capture by freely snaring a piece of ground, and then putting a quail in a cage in the middle of it, to lure the birds towards the snare. They also catch them, and partridges too, by driving the bevy towards a collapsible net. ”

“ One of the most pathetic of all the wordless cries of the out-of-doors is the covey-call of the female quail at night, trying to gather the scattered flock together after the dogs are called off and the hunters have gone home. ”

“ The 261 quail and the wren, the jay and the blue-bird, the mocking-bird, the partridge, the fish-hawk, the eagle and the crow, and also the swallow, the owl, and whip-poor-will, all build their nests within a stone’s throw of my door, and they know that the friendless old man will do them no harm. ”

“ If the ordinary interpretation of selâv by "Quail" be accepted, the description is exactly correct. The Quails fly in vast flocks, and, being weak-winged birds, never fly against the direction of the wind. They will wait for days until the wind blows in the 434 required direction, and will then take wing in countless multitudes; so that in an hour or two a spot on which not a Quail could be seen is covered with them. ”

“ The common Valley Quail of California inhabits the prairies and the grain-fields of the cultivated districts, and frequents the thickets which border the streams, usually in coveys of from a dozen to a hundred individuals, except during the breeding-season, when it is found only in pairs. Like the eastern Quail, the male bird is very fond of sitting on some stump or log projecting above the grass and weeds which conceal his mate and nest or brood, and, especially in the early morning, uttering his peculiar cry,—whistle it can hardly be called. ”

“ I hope I may be allowed to suggest that both those who appreciate the table qualities of the toothsome quail, and those who know the keen enjoyment and health-giving results of their pursuit, should recognize it as quite worth their while, and as a matter of duty, to co-operate in every movement having for its object the protection, preservation and propagation of this game. Our quail have many natural enemies; they are often decimated by the severity of winter, and there are human beings so degraded and so lost [Pg 208] to shame as to seek their destruction in ways most foul. ”

“ By reason of the colour of the Quail, and its inveterate habit of keeping close to the ground, it easily escapes observation, and even the most practised eye can scarcely distinguish a single bird, though there may be hundreds within a very small compass. Fortunately for the hunters, and unfortunately for itself, it betrays itself by its shrill whistling note, which it frequently emits, and which is so peculiar that it will at once direct the hunter to his prey. ”

“ Or if we ask how our ruffed grouse survives and prospers in a climate where its cousin the quail perishes, we learn that it eats the buds of certain trees, while the quail is a ground-feeder and is often cut off by a deep fall of snow. ”

“ Moreover, the flesh of the Quail is peculiarly excellent, and would be a great temptation to men who had passed so long a time without eating animal food. Another corroboration of the identity of the Quail and the Selâv is to be found in the mode in which the flesh is prepared at the present day. As soon as the birds have arrived, they are captured in vast multitudes, on account of their weariness. ”

“ It makes me feel as old as the thousand-year pine Teacher Bellows told our class about. It’s a little quail bird, dearie. You’ll see ever so many of them in flocks. There are sixty different kinds of cousins in their family. The Bob Whites with their reddish brown plumage have a black and white speckled jacket. They live in the grass rather than in trees and are good friends of the farmer because they devour so many of the insects that destroy grain and fruits. This one is a mountain quail ”

“ The quail is a bird favorable to the happiness of man and advancement of civilization, is of inestimable value as a permanent resident, for the reason he is independent of forests for the maintenance of existence and perpetuation. He is the bird of field and farm and the only one from which a single pair can produce and rear to maturity more than half a hundred young in one season, to present as choice morsels of food for the weary farmer and protector.
It is comforting to the sportsman to feel assured there is one resident game bird the iniquity of the pot-hunter can not exterminate. ”

“ The man who will openly advocate the stopping of quail-shooting because the quails are of such great value to the farmers, or because they are so beautiful and companionable to man, receives no sympathy from ninety per cent of the bird-killing sportsmen. ”

“ When one stumbles on the nest of a Quail, Meadowlark, or Oven-bird, it is well not to approach it closely, because all over the country many night-prowling animals have the habit of following by scent the footsteps of any one who has lately gone along through the woods or across the fields. ”

“ The Quail and the Falcon
There once was a young Quail that lived on a farm. When the farmer ploughed up the land, Quailie used to hop about over the clods and pick up seeds, or weeds, or worms, or anything that the plough turned up, and he ate these and lived on them.
You might think this was very nice for him; he had no trouble to find food, because the ploughman turned it up; he had only to hop along after the plough and peck. Not a bit of it; he must needs better himself, as he said; so one fine day he flew away over the farm, away to the forest which fringed it ”

“ Midias the quail; (1) indeed he looks like a quail that has been hit hard over the head. Out of love for the birds they repeat all the songs which concern the swallow, the teal, the goose or the pigeon; in each verse you see wings, or at all events a few feathers. This is what is happening down there. Finally, there are more than ten thousand folk who are coming here from earth to ask you for feathers and hooked claws; so, mind you supply yourself with wings for the immigrants. ”

“ The Quail is esteemed a great delicacy as an article of food, and is sought for the market by means of traps, nets, and various kinds of snares, and by sportsmen with the gun and dogs. It is naturally unsuspicious, is easily approached, and in the thickly settled parts of the country its ranks are already greatly thinned. ”

“ Next day the Fowler sounded his imitation of the quail’s note, and the birds flocked from far and near; then, when a good many had gathered in a clump within his reach, he cast the net, which fell over them and made them all prisoners. They all did what the wise Quail had told them; each quail put his head through one of the meshes, then at a word they were all away together, bearing the net with them. After some little time they saw a large bush, and dropped upon this bush; then the net was held up by the bush, while all the birds got away underneath. ”

“ When the little birds are hatched they are as strong as little chickens, and the mother bird takes them off to ramble about the thicket in the same way as a hen leads her brood. The quail is a plump grayish-brown bird, speckled with black and white. Its peculiar whistle may be heard anywhere in the country all the long summer day. Children often imitate the sound, and imagine that the quail is always screaming "more wet" ”