THE KEY-NOTE.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY E. CORBET.

Have at him, old man! yoi! push him up, and drive him out! and Hannibal gives the key-note to as pretty a find as we shall see the season through. The hound still trying to the left, on his own account, is almost equally good with the centre-piece of the picture; whilst the others go far to realize Mr. Delmè Radcliffe's well-known description in The Noble Science: "Like hosts that rally round their standard at the trumpet's call, come bounding through the brake the merry throng: the huntsman's cheer is responded to by a rapid succession of

'Throats

With a whole gamut filled of heavenly notes.'

It is a moment of intense, I had almost written of painful interest." Old Taplin, the veterinarian, spoke in much the same way of his favourite pastime, stag-hunting, when he said in his Sporting Dictionary, some sixty years since," Rapturously transporting as is the moment of meeting and throwing off with fox-hounds, no less so is the awfully-impressive prelude to turning out the deer," to which Nimrod wrote in comment upon the bottom of the page, in the copy we now possess, "No doubt awful to some of the cockney sportsmen who attend." But then Nimrod had little reverence for stag-hunting. Another hard and dry autumn bad at one time put quite a stop to the cubbing; but they have been able to get to work again since the rain, and our advices from most countries are very encouraging. The cattle-disease, however, threatens to interfere with hounds in some districts; and at a meeting of the East Sussex Association, at Lewes, a resolution has actually been put and passed, to the effect that it was highly desirable to refrain from hunting during the prevalence of the cattle-plague; a milder suggestion that Masters of Hounds, when they came to a farm where the disease prevailed, should whip off, being rejected on the plea that "if the hounds found in Plashet, neither whip nor anything else would stop them." Christie and the Southdown would consequently seem to be in a bit of a fix, though Lewes is full of horses, and their prospects in other respects never better. But if hounds will "carry" the complaint, what will hares and rabbits do? In fact, some of the hares are said to be diseased already; so we have hopes that the heavy preservers and game-mongers may have to thin out their covers even under the pressure of an Order in Council.

Mr.

But hark to Hannibal! hark! and the wall-eyed chesnut pricks his ears again as Ben gets them together with a blast of his horn; and the coffee-room makes ready for a start. Our huntsman reminds one something of Ben Morgan in his figure, so that we may be in for a scurry over the Yorkshire Wolds; and as this is quite a new country to us, we realize, with the old dictionary-maker, the "awfullyimpressive prelude" to his breaking away.

THE AMERICAN QUAIL (Ortyx virginiana) AS AN ENGLISH GAME BIRD.

BY THE RANGER.

This bird, which bears equally well the two extremes of climate, the cold of an Upper Canadian winter and the fierce summer sun of Texas, might be introduced and become a valuable addition to the feathered game of Britain.

Almost everywhere in the United States it is called the partridge; and, in fact, in the Southern States, where it is not migratory, it more nearly resembles in its habits the English partridge than the European quail.

Even as to the quail being migratory in the Northern States, opinions are divided, as the conclusion of the following quotation will prove.

"The ornithological name of the partridge is perdix, of the quail coturnix, of the American bird, distinct from either, ortyx; the latter being the Greek word, as coturnix is the Latin word, meaning quail.

"It is, of course, impossible to talk of killing ortyxes, or more correctly ortyges; we must therefore, perforce, call these birds either quail or partridge.

"Now, as both the European partridges are considerably more than double the size of the American bird, as they are never in any country migratory, and as they differ from the ortyx in not having the same woodland habits, in cry and in plumage; while in size (?) and in being a bird of passage the European resembles that of America, resembling it in all other respects far more closely than the partridge proper, I cannot for a moment hesitate in saying that American quail is the correct and proper English name for the Ortyx virginiana; and I conceive that the naturalists who first distinguished him from the quail, with which he was originally classed, sanction the English nomenclature by giving him a scientific title directly analogous to quail, and not to partridge.

"I should as soon think, myself, of calling the bird a turkey as a partridge, and I shall ever uphold that the question is entirely set at rest, and that the true name of this dear little bird in the vernacular is American quail; and his country has better reason to be proud of him than she has of many of her sons who make much more noise in the world than our favourite Bob White.' (The cry of the quail resembling these two words has caused him to be thus christened by the country folk).

"While on this subject I may observe, for the benefit of our northern sportsmen, many of whom I have heard positively assert that the quail is not migratory, that everywhere west of the Delaware he is as distinctly a bird of passage as the woodcock, and the farther west the more palpably so.

66 Why he loves these habits with us of the middle States I cannot

guess, nor has any naturalist so much as alluded to the fact, which is nevertheless indisputable."

In the matter of size in the quotation above, " Frank Forester," probably from having been so long absent from Europe, was decidedly mis. taken; as the American quail, certainly in the Southern States, is quite one-half larger than is the European bird, and I am convinced that I have often killed old birds which were as large again.

Whenever the quail is migratory in America, I am confident it is forced to become so from the severity of the northern winter, and that it is driven south by stern necessity.

In the South they commence to pair in March, and the young bevies are frequently seen before the month of April is past.

The nest is generally placed at the root of some small tuft of grass, sheltered by a bush or a tree, the corner of some plantation fence, or the foot of some old tree stump; it is composed of leaves, dry grass, and a few of the hen-bird's own breast feathers, and though rudely, it is often very ingeniously constructed. Great ingenuity is shown in so placing it as to escape observation, and it not unfrequently bids defiance to the searches of the most inquisitive eye, as well as affording the most ample protection on every side from the inclemency of the weather.

The eggs are white, and vary in number from ten to twenty: sometimes even five-and-twenty have been found in a nest; and the period of incubation is supposed to be about twenty-one days.

When I was living in Matagorda County a quail hatched out a brood of twenty-four little ones, and I frequently saw them through the summer, the bevy with the old cock and hen making twenty-six.

Whilst living at this place, where my wigwam was many miles distant from any other house, I had a good opportunity of noticing the habits of some quail which from never being molested had become half tame, and which would allow me to pass by them within ten steps, when they were dusting themselves, without showing the least fear.

Many of these quail, which I fancied I knew from the rest, upon the same principle that the shepherd distinguishes the faces of his sheep, were there summer and winter for the three years I lived at that place, and I left them still there when I sailed for England.

It is said very positively by many, that it will prove impossible to acclimatize foreign game, that Parliament will pass no prospective laws for the protection of game yet to be introduced and established, and that consequently, as no penalty will be attached to its destruction, it will be destroyed as fast as it is produced. I doubt this.

Of course I do not mean to deny that occasionally a stray bird or a stray bevy, when it wan it wanders off the land where it was reared, will not come to grief; but I am sure of this, that there are many noblemen and gentlemen who have such extensive properties that they could within their limits give the Ortyx virginiana such a start that the few wanderers will count for nothing, that may happen to get picked up when out of bounds.

This might still more be the case where several extensive preserves join, as then the proprietors, by a mutual agreement not only to protect, but to refrain from shooting them for a year or two, would soon get such a head of this beautiful game, that they might fairly leave it to the protection of the law of trespass only.

It is not so very many years ago that the red-legged partridge was introduced into this country; and although it has proved itself to be anything but an acquisition to the sportsman from its various bad qualities, such as spoiling dogs, running, &c., yet it has obtained such a footing in some counties, that it holds its own in spite of all sorts of expedients used to root it out.

The American quail has none of these bad qualities, and I am sure could be as easily introduced as was the Frenchman, and it would soon become so abundant on the preserves as to gradually spread itself through the country.

The flight of the American quail is short: they seldom fly more them four hundred yards when flushed, and are very easily marked. They have one very singular attribute, and I should be glad to see whether they retain it when transported from America to British soil: they are, after being first flushed, and then only, able to retain their scent, and your pointers or setters may range over and all round them, yet not discover them; trampled up, or by any means once again put to flight, and this singular quality no longer remains to them. This speciality is enjoyed by no other game bird with which I am acquainted.

At first I was very much puzzled by this curious quality. I was about the first man to use pointers in Texas, and shoot small game English fashion; and although this singularity was well known, and had been frequently discussed by Northern sportsmen in magazines and newspapers in the Atlantic States, I had not then read about it, or even heard of it, and it was not until long after I had satisfied myself that it was "a fixed fact” that I saw it stated in Porter's New York Spirit of the Times, by the first authority in the United States, at that day-the late Henry William Herbert (« Frank Forester").

I shall not readily forget my first day at quail in Texas. I was staying at Galveston Island, and had picked up an odd quail or two, and a good many snipe upon the island, when one day my landlord of the tavern at which I was stopping informed me that a countryman of mine from the mainland had arrived with a boatful of sweet potatoes, corn, and other produce, and that if I was desirous of visiting the mainland, now was my opportunity.

I soon met my countryman, and arranged with him to carry me across the bay and give me a fortnight's shelter at his house. Terms were soon arranged, and that afternoon late I took my seat in the stern of his little sloop, accompanied by my pointer, my double gun, in a waterproof case, cleaned thoroughly for the morrow's work, resting across my knees. We had a head wind; and though the distance was only four miles, it took us until dark to beat even that trifling distance, and after making our little port we had a walk of a mile and a-half to the house. A tribe of boys and hobbledehoys met us at the landing, the sons of mine host, to carry up the few necessaries purchased in the city of Galveston, as well as the sail and other loose "fixings" of the little sloop. Old Solomon P. led the way; and shouldering my gun, with my pointer at my heels, I followed, the rest following as fast as they loaded themselves with the impedimenta.

Arrived at the house, I was introduced to mine hostess, an Englishwoman; then to my supper, to the boykins as they appeared, and lastly to my bed.