The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-12-11
THE AMERICAN QUAIL.
A Merited Tribute from England for Our
Favorite Game-Bird.


A Merited Tribute from England for Our
Favorite 'eame-Bird.
The frequenter of Appalachian forests
may swear there is no satisfaction like
that of trudging homeward on an Octo-
Der night with hardly-earned four
brace of ruffled grouse. The cock
shooter of Nova Scotia, New Bruins
wick or Maine may recall the delighted
zap Of his spaniel in the crisp autumn
woods as the sweetest of all music. bat
for "the greatest happiness of the
greatest number" and not only that,
but as anording the highest class of
sport, and demanding at the same time
the greatest smartness with the gun,
the quail has no rival among American
birds. | venture to 90 even further,
and affirm in my partially that he has
no equal anywhere. The quail is, in
short. over considerable slice of North
America what the partr dye is with us.
Other varieties of Amer can winged
game vanish before civilization, but the
IAillf III q ma iOl AtN VI buG OlNtL pbdlCS,
has survived the cultivation of two cen
turies nay, where that cultivation is
careless and natural conditions arc IA
vOrable, he has llourished with unremit-
ting vigor. His piping call in spring time
sounds from the very garden fences of
homesteads whose walls and porches
are lettering with respectable old age.
He springs with his brood in autumn
from stubbles whence the stumps had
rottea long before George Washington
was born. Civilization. when not too
violent is to the quail rather friend
than a foe; wherever grain-growing is
most general, provided that woodlands
and running streams are plentiful, there
in most abundance will he be found
Like his cousin, the English partridge,
the Virginia quail is product of the
soil, and clings to the land that reared
him. The land owner feels natural
sense Of proprietorship in the quail that
does not apply to the duck, the wood
cock or the RULED grouse. The farmer
has watched his birds through the cycle
of the year; has listened to the "Ah,
Bob White. ali, Bob White!" that with
the fall of the apple blossoms begins to
fill the air; has stumbled upon their
nests perchance later on among the
clover fields, and protected the eggs
from the teeth of the mower and the
clutch of the ruthless Ethiopian. In the
warm days of August and September
he has come again and again upon the
infant coveys, and watched them
tluttering up like sparrows from the
thickets and brushy water courses,
where they hide from the hawks which
sweep unmolested through the air.
So when the strong. full-grOwn birds
come out upon the November stubble to
feed and become ripe for the sportsman,
they occupy a position in the estima-
ton Of the community somewhat diff
ferent from any other transatlantic
game bird. They are recognized, not
merely by n written law that some
times does not amount TO much beyond
the Atlantic, but by yet stronger UNI
written law, as appurtenances of the
land which reared them. The lower
class American, who owns no land of
his own, as general thing resents
nothing more than the preservation of
game and close seasons of all kinds,
but even he has been forced to tacitly
acknowledge the domestic position Of
the, quail. To open cannonade
within sight of a man $ window, or to
beat stubble-field where his horses
are blowing, is not quite the same
thing as traversing prairie, noun
tain, Or u forest. in which, though
ownership exists, it has made no visible
impress. Private property in land is
nowhere held more sacred than in
America. Legislation which inter-
fered with the rights of property would
nowhere upon earth be so resented rs
in the Western Republic. So, when
the pursuit of game theoretically in
American property entails evident in
truson or trespass upon a farmers
fields, the most democratic and coarse
grained hunter instinctively comes to
halt outside the gate. -Nacmiiian'S
Myg,o ysno