Identifier: americangamebird00grin (find matches)
Title: American game-bird shooting
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Grinnell, George Bird, 1849-1938
Subjects: Game and game-birds Hunting
Publisher: New York, Forest and stream publishing company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
s round out the banks of the ditchesand their bottoms, and a fringe of weeds and brush,thick and thin in places, strings along the banks andmakes a fairly good shelter for the quail. On theseland squares are grown cotton, or corn, or nothing,as the case may be, though, if not cultivated, there isalways certain to be a good crop of weeds, affordingplenty of quail food. When flushed in such places thequail may fly a few yards to the first ditch, or maycross over two or three ditches before finding a placeto its liking. As mentioned elsewhere, the state of the weathermay greatly affect the quails habits. The bevy havinggone to the ditches for safety, the dog, to be useful,must have great superiority in roading if he pursuessatisfactorily. When in the ditch the birds run swiftlyalong the bottom. It is almost impossible, at first, toinduce the green dog to go into the ditch, or, being in,it is impossible to make him remain there, though itmay not be over a foot deep, and dry. The green dog
Text Appearing After Image:
QUAIL SHOOTING 345 will promptly cross out from one side to the other,missing the scent, and accomplishing nothing useful.He does not know what is required of him. But oncehe catches the idea, he soon improves on it, followingcarefully along the bottom of the ditch and pointingthe scattered birds here and there, every few yardsapart, in ones and twos, the shooter having a goodopportunity from his position on the outside to kill asthe birds fly out. The shooting along ditches is not so easy as onemight imagine. Sometimes the birds run swiftly sev-eral hundred yards or more in the ditch, and may thenrun out and across to other ditches, giving a trail whichmay try the most experienced dogs to follow. If the birds happen to be near a cotton or corn field,where the ground is bare, and there are no ditches forconcealment, they may run so fast and far that thedog may never approach near enough to them to securea point, and the shooter who is inexperienced in thiswork will be likely to think

Note About Images