man-shunning hermit, steals down from his wild haunts among the giant
rhododendrons, and evergreen rock-calmias, to nearer woodskirts, and
cedar-brakes margining the red buckwheat stubbles, to be found there by
the staunch dogs, and brought to bag by the quick death-shot, “at morn
and dewy eve,” without the toil and torture, often most vain and vapid,
of scaling miles on miles of mountain-ledges, struggling through
thickets of impenetrable verdure among the close-set stems of hemlock,
pine, or juniper, only to hear the startled rush of an unseen pinion,
and to pause, breathless, panting, and outdone, to curse, while you
gather breath for a renewed effort, the bird which haunts such covert,
and the covert which gives shelter to such birds.
In this month, if no untimely frost, or envious snow flurry come,
premature, to chase him to the sunny swamps of Carolina and the
rice-fields of Georgia, the plump, white-fronted, pink-legged autumn
Woodcock, flaps up from the alder-brake with his shrill whistle, and
soars away, away, on a swift and powerful wing above the russet
tree-tops, to be arrested only by the instinctive eye and rapid finger
of the genuine sportsman; and no longer as in faint July to be bullied
and bungled to death by every German city pot-hunter, or every pottering
rustic school-boy, equipped and primed for murder, on his Saturday’s
half holyday.
In this month, the brown-jacketed American hare, which our folk _will_
persist in calling _Rabbit_—though it neither lives in warrens, nor
burrows habitually under ground, and though it breeds not every month in
the year, which are the true distinctive characteristics of the
Rabbit—is in his prime of conditions, the leverets of the season, plump
and well grown; and the old bucks and does, recruited after the breeding
season, in high health and strength, and now legitimate food for
gunpowder, legitimate quarry for the chase of the merry beagles.
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;
and in this month, according to the laws of all the States, even the
most rigorous and stringent in preservation, killable legitimately under
statute.
In New York, generally, the close-time for the Quail ends with October,
and he may not be slain until the first day of November; in New Jersey,
_ortygicide_ commences on the 25th of October, in Massachusetts and
Connecticut on some day between the 15th of the past and the first of
the present month; in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, where they
are something more forward, as breeding earlier in the season than in
the Eastern States, on the first of October; and in Canada West, where
they are exceedingly abundant, on the first of September; which is, for
many reasons, entirely too early, as hereafter I shall endeavor to
demonstrate.
In my own opinion, the first of November, and even the middle of
October, are too late for the termination of the Quail’s close-time,
inasmuch as five-sevenths of the broods in ordinarily forward seasons
are full-grown and strong on the wing, as well as all the crops off the
ground, by the first of October; and although the late, second, or third
broods may be undersized, they are still well able to take care of
themselves in case the parent birds are killed; whereas, on account of
their immature size, they are safe from the legitimate shot; and, on
account of their unsaleability in market to the restaurant, from the
poaching pot-shot also.
I should, therefore, myself, be strongly inclined to advocate the
adoption of one common day, and that day the first of October, for the
close-time of all our upland game; the English Snipe alone excepted.
Touching the reasons for postponing the day of Woodcock-shooting, a
notice will be found in our July number, and an extended discussion in
my Field Sports, vol. I. pp. 169 to 200. Of the Quail, in regard to this
point, I have said enough here, unless this; that, in my opinion, there
is far more need to protect them from the trap during the wintry snows,
than from the gun in the early autumn; the latter cannot possibly at any
time exterminate the race; the former not only easily _may_, but
actually _does_ all but annihilate the breed, whenever the snow falls
and lies deep during any weeks of December, during the whole of which
month the pursuit and sale of this charming little bird is legal.
Could I have my way, the close-time for Quail should end on the last day
of September; and the shooting season end on the twenty-fourth day of
December; before which date snow now rarely lies continuously in New
Jersey, Southern New York, or Pennsylvania. Why I would anticipate the
termination of the close-time, in reference to the Ruffed Grouse, I
shall state at length, when I come to treat of that noble bird, in our
December issue; to which month I have attributed it, because it is then
that it _is_, though in my opinion, _it ought not to be_, most
frequently seen on our tables. While on the topic of preservation, I
will mention a fact, which certainly is not widely, much less generally
known, among farmers; namely, that this merry and domestic little bird
is one of his best friends and assistants in the cultivation of his
lands. During nine or ten months of the year he subsists entirely on the
seeds of many of the most troublesome and noxious weeds and grasses,
which infest the fields, more especially those of the ragwort, the dock,
and the briar. It is believed, I might almost say ascertained, that he
never plucks any kind of grain, even his own loved buckwheat when ripe,
from the stalk, but only gleans the fallen seeds from the stubbles after
harvest, so that while he in nothing deteriorates the harvest to be
ingathered, he tends in the highest degree to the preservation of clean
and unweeded fields and farms; indeed, when it is taken into
consideration that each individual Quail consumes daily nearly two gills
of weed-seed, it will be at once evident that a few bevies of these
little birds, carefully and assiduously preserved on a farm, will do
more toward keeping it free of weeds, than the daily annual labor of a
dozen farm-servants. This preservation will not be counteracted or
injured by a moderate and judicious use of the gun in the autumnal
months; for the bevies need thinning, especially of the cock-birds,
which invariably outnumber the hens, and which, if unable to pair, from
a want of mates, form into little squads or companies of males, which
remain barren, and become the deadly enemies of the young cocks of the
following year, beating them off and dispersing them; though, strange to
say, they will themselves never mate again, nor do aught, after
remaining unpaired during one season, to propagate their species. The
use of the trap, on the contrary, destroying whole bevies at a swoop,
where the gun, even in the most skillful hands, rarely much more than
decimates them, may, in a single winter’s day, if many traps be set,
destroy the whole stocking of a large farm for years, if not forever. I
have myself invariably remarked, since my attention was first called to
the fact, that those farms which are best stocked with Quail, are
invariably the cleanest of weeds; and a right good sportsman, and good
friend of mine, working on the same base _per contra_, says that, in
driving his shooting-cart and dogs through a country, he has never found
it worth his while to stop and beat a district full of weedy and dirty
farms, as such never contain Quail.
If this may lead our farmers to consider that every live Quail does far
more good on the farm, than the shilling earned by his capture in the
_omnivorous_ trap; and therefore to prohibit their sons and farm-boys
from exterminating them at their utmost need, when food is scarce, and
shelter hard to find, my words will not have been altogether wasted, nor
my object unattained.
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!
* * * * *
THE SPECTRE KNIGHT AND HIS LADYE-BRIDE.
A LAY OF THE OLDEN TIME.
BY FANNY FIELDING.
Lady Margaret sits in her father’s ha’
Wi’ the tear-drop in her een,
For her lover-knight is far awa’
In the fields o’ Palestine.
Now the rose is fled frae her downy cheek,
An’ wan is her lily-white hand,
An’ her bonnie blue e’e the tear doth dim,
For her knight in the Holy Land.
His banner it is the Holy Cross,
But it gars her greet fu’ sair,
As she meekly kneels and his lo’ed name breathes
At _Our Mother’s_ shrine in prayer.
“O, hae ye a care, sweet Mother fair,
O’er the lion-hearted king,
But send me back Sir Hildebrande safe,
Abune a’ ither thing!”
’Tis Hallowe’en, and twelve lang months
Hae i’ their turn passed round,
An’ ’twas Hallowe’en when Sir Hildebrande marched
For Palestine’s holy ground.
The castle clock tolls midnight’s hour,
An’ the ladye bethinks her now
Of her lover’s words at the trysting-tree—
His fervent and heartfelt vow.
“O, ladye fair,” said the gallant Hildebrande,
“When twelve lang months shall flee,
Come ye then through the mossy glen
Adown by the trysting-tree.
“When the wearie year brings Hallowe’en
Ance mair to this lo’ed land,
An’ if thou wilt come at midnight’s hour
Thou shalt hear of thine own Hildebrande.”
O, the wintry wind blaws sair and chill,
An’ it whistles fu’ mournfully,
As the ladye strolls, at the witching hour,
To the glen adown the lea.
The maiden draws her mantle close,
For the night is dark an’ drear,
An’ now that she nears the trysting-tree
Her heart it quails wi’ fear.
O, louder and hoarser blaws the blast,
An’ darker grows the sky,
An’ the clattering tramp of a courser’s hoof
Grows nigh, an’ yet more nigh!
The coal-black steed doth slack his speed
An’ halt at the ladye’s side,
An’ a red light gleams in flickering beams
Around her far and wide.
A mail-clad knight doth now alight,
So ghastly pale an’ wan
That the ladye cries, wi’ tearfu’ eyes,
“Where is my lover gane!”
A voice like the hollow, murm’ring wind
Replied to the high-born dame—
“O, thy lover sleeps on the battle-field
Among the noble slain—
“But the soul that vowed to be true to thee
Will be true whate’er betide,
An’ returns from the land of chivalrie
To claim thee for his bride!”
This said, he stretched forth his bony hand
To his well-beloved bride,
An’ now he mounts the coal-black steed
Wi’ the ladye by his side.
But hist! the moor-cock crows fu’ shrill
Alang the dreary way,
An’ goblin, elf, nor wand’ring ghaist
Can face the light o’ day.
The phantom steed doth champ his bit
An’ flash his fiery eye—
An’ away they speed o’er hill an’ dale—
O’er rock an’ mountain high!
Lang years hae passed since Sir Hildebrande came
Frae the fields o’ Palestine,
To claim fair Margaret for his bride,
But on every Hallowe’en,
When the castle clock tolls midnight’s hour,
As on that night of yore,
The ladye and knight are seen to sweep
Adown the drearie moor.
The coal-black steed doth champ his bit
An’ flash his fiery e’e,
But he slacks his speed at the knight’s command
As he gains the trysting-tree.
* * * * *
TO L——. WITH SOME POEMS.
BY GRACE GREENWOOD.
I know these lays will come to thee
Like flowers along thy pathway strown—
And wear to thy young, generous eyes
A grace and beauty not their own.
Thou know’st they spring where deepest shade
And blinding sunlight are at strife—
Faint blooms and frail, yet bringing thee
Sweet breathings from my inmost life.
Or come like waters, leaping out
From shadowy places to the day,
To catch heaven’s brightness on their waves,
And freshen earth along their way.
A streamlet laughing in the sun
Is all a busy world may hear—
The deepest fountains of my soul
Send up their murmurs to thine ear.
There are to whom these lays shall come
Like strains that sky-larks downward send;
But ah, no higher than thy heart
They sing to thee, belovéd friend!
For in thy manhood pure and strong,
With thy great soul, thy fresh, young heart,
Thou _livest_ my ideal life,
And what I only dream thou _art_.
The Grecian youth whose name thou bear’st,
Who nightly with the billows strove,
And through the wild seas cleaved his way
To the dear bosom of his love,
Ne’er bore a braver soul than thine,
When yawned great deeps and tempests frowned,
Nor lifted up amid the waves
A brow with loftier beauty crowned.
The poet’s rare and wondrous gifts
In thee await their triumph-hour—
There sleep within thy dreamy eyes
The mighty secrets of his power.
Thy heart, with one high throb, can rise
His fair, heroic dreams above—
There breathes more passion in thy voice
Than in a thousand lays of love.
Ah, know’st thou not, the while thou deem’st
The poet’s mission most divine,
Life’s grand, unwritten poetry
Goes out from natures such as thine?
What though it falleth brokenly,
And faintly on the world’s dull ear—
Though clamorous voices cry it down,
To God it rises, pure and clear!
It cometh as a service glad—
A music all as full and sweet,
As though the stars hymned forth their joy,
And rolled their anthems to His feet.
When, like the Grecian youth, thou see’st
The midnight tempests gather round—
When storm-clouds seem to flood the heavens,
And all the starry lights are drowned;—
Upborne by angel-hands, may’st thou
Through life’s wild sea right onward sweep,
To where Hope’s signal lights the night,
And Love stands watching by the deep.
* * * * *
WORDSWORTH.
BY WM. ALEXANDER.
Another bard of Albion is no more,
Who erst with folded arms, oft, calmly stood,
Nature’s contemplative—the great and good—
Let every hill and valley him deplore,
Whose hand hath ceased to wake the tuneful lyre—
’Mid earthly landscapes, and o’er mountains old,
He walked in sweet Excursion, to behold
“The Rainbow in the Sky.” Nature’s great Sire
Hath taken him—“his heart leaps up” to see
The emerald-colored bow about the throne,
Where sits the King of kings and Lord alone.
Sweet Wordsworth! poet of true purity!
Thy hand upon a nobler lyre doth rest—
A lyre of glory in the land of those forever blest.
* * * * *
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
_The Prelude; or Growth of a Poet’s Mind. An Autobiographical
Poem. By William Wordsworth. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol.
12mo._
_The Excursion. By William Wordsworth. New York: C. S. Francis &
Co. 1 vol. 12mo._