Ice

drums the ruffed strutter on his ancient hemlock log. cools not his blood, nor the deep snow-drift, whence he, startled, whirrs impetuous to the solemn pines, and his hiding places of laurel and tangled rhododendron, laughing at cheated dogs and wearied sportsmen. A bird to set traps for. Unfamiliar, rough, rugged hermit. Dry meat. I like him not. The quail is the bird for me. He is no rover, no emigrant. He stays at home, and is identified with the soil. Where the farmer works, he lives, and loves and whistles.* In budding spring time, and in scorching summer-in bounteous autumn, and in barren winter, his voice is heard from the same bushy hedge fence, and from his customary cedars. Cupidity and cruelty may drive him to the woods, and to seek more quiet seats; but be merciful and kind to him, and he will visit your barn-yard, and sing for you upon the boughs of the apple-tree by your gate-way. But when warm May first woos the young flowers to open and receive her breath, then begin the loves, and jealousies, and duels of the heroes of the bevy. Duels, too often, alas! bloody and fatal! for there liveth not an individual of the gallinaceous order, braver, bolder, more enduring than a cock quail, fighting for his ladye-love. Arms, too, he wieldeth, such as give no vain blows, rightly used. His mandible serves for other purposes than mere biting of grass

* I am not unaware that Audubon describes the quail as migratory at the west, and that he says the shores of the Ohio, in the fall, are covered with "flocks." Nor am I ignorant that Wilson says he has heard that the bird is migratory in Nova Scotia. It may be so; but our quails are better brought up. Nevertheless, I do not care to believe everything that students of Linnæus and Buffon say, who talk of flocks of partridges, and mean bevies of quail. By-the-by, what is the reason that the whole race of ornithologists call the partidge tetrao, which is latin for a bustard and a wild turkey. It is not the less to be admired that they call the quail perdix Virginiana. If they had supped with Horace and Catullus, and all that set, as Colonel Hawker and I have done in the spirit-they would have found out that the true title was coturnix.-Vide Hawker on Shooting. VOL. I.-10

hoppers and picking up Indian corn. While the dire affray rages, Miss Quailina looketh on, from her safe perch on a limb, above the combatants, impartial spectatress, holding her love under her left wing, patiently; and when the vanquished craven finally bites the dust, descends and rewards the conquering hero with her heart and hand.

Now begin the cares and responsibilities of wedded life. Away fly the happy pair to seek some grassy tussock, where, safe from the eye of the hawk, and the nose of the fox, they may rear their expected brood in peace, provident, and not doubting that their espousals will be blessed with a numerous offspring. Oats harvest arrives, and the fields are waving with yellow grain. Now, be wary, oh kind-hearted cradler, and tread not into those pure white eggs ready to burst with life! Soon there is a peeping sound heard, and lo! a proud mother walketh magnificently in the midst of her children, scratching and picking, and teaching them how to swallow. Happy she, if she may be permitted to bring them up to maturity, and uncompelled to renew her joys in another nest.

The assiduities of a mother have a beauty and a sacredness about them that command respect and reverence in all animal nature, human or inhuman-what a lie does that word carry -except, perhaps, in monsters, insects, and fish. I never yet heard of the parental tenderness of a trout, eating up his little baby, nor of the filial gratitude of a spider, nipping the life out of his gray-headed father, and usurping his web. But if you would see the purest, the sincerest, the most affecting piety of a parent's love, startle a young family of quails, and watch the conduct of the mother. She will not leave you. No, not she. But she will fall at your feet, uttering a noise which none but a distressed mother can make, and she will run, and flutter, and seem to try to be caught, and cheat your