or possibly a black or two (I mean Partridges, shooting the
other kind est expressément défendu), and almost certainly a
hare or two make their appearance, the former skimming along
about the level of the maclmn, lovely cross shots (some of
course, but not many with well trained beaters, out of range),
the latter tippcty tap, without the faintest conception of looking
up, halting probably to listen with ears erect just outside
the field, perhaps not five yards from the machan.
And now the flank beaters have got down to the edge of the
field where your station is, and now the Quail begin to rise and
whirr past, and nine out of ten birds will pass within shot if
the thing has been properly managed. You are now in the
warm corner, and the birds will rise much quicker than you
can load and fire, unless you have a rule that at each shot every
man halts and keeps perfectly still until you whistle. Even
then, as the semicircle contracts, the Quail whirr up in threes and
fours, and many will get past without running the gauntlet of
your fire.
If, as often happens, there are a few scattered bushes here and
there dotted over the fallow field, 5, 10, 15 yards away from
the ede;e of the field, and you whistle a halt, get down and
yourself walk through them, quietly, putting your foot into each,
you will probably find that, despite the terrific fusilade you have
been keeping up, almost every tiny patch contains one or more
Quails.
I have thus occasionally killed over a dozen brace, besides
other gimc, from one platform ; but even if you get only five or
six brace all told, there is " a rapture of repose" about the arrangement,
which I confess has always had many charms for me.
Colonel Tickcll furnishes some cxcclleut notes about this
species. Ile says :—
" The Quail makes its appearance in India about the middle
or third week in October,* when, in Bengal, the rice is still in
the ear. It adheres to the paddy fields after the crops are cut,
gleaning in the stubble for the grains left by the reapers, and
when these arc exhausted, repairs to the fields of pulse, vetch,
&c. (urhur, chunna, moong, oorud, &c), which are about that
time ripe, and feeds on the peas that fall from the pods. When
these are out, it still finds shelter in the weeds that grow at the
feet of the urhur stalks, or hides in the tussocks of grass bordering
the fields, or, in countries covered with much brushwood,
it retires for concealment into the bér and ground sâl thickets
in the immediate vicinity of cultivation. The stay of this bird
in Central India is but short, and by the end of January few
are to be seen there.
" In such, localities as have been above noticed, Quails at times
abound to such a degree that shooting them is mere slaughter.
* Earlier of course in Northern India.—A. O. II.
Where birds get up at every step dogs or beaters are worse than
useless, and where the game is so plentiful search after a wounded
bird is seldom thought worth the trouble. It is usual to be
provided with two or three guns,* to be loaded as fast as emptied
by a servant. With one gun only it would be necessary to wash
out the barrels two or three times in the course of the afternoon,
or at all events to wait every now and then for them to
cool. A tolerably good shot will bag fifty to sixty brace in
about three hours, and knock down many others that arc not
found. I remember one day getting into a dcyra, or island
formed by alluvial deposit, in the Ganges, between Patiri
(Pankipore) and Soneporc, which was sown almost entirely
over with gram (chunna), and which literally swarmed with
Quail. I do not exaggerate when I say they were like locusts
in number. Every step that brushed the covert sent off a
number of them, so that I had to stand every now and then
like a statue and employ my arms only, and that in a stealthy
manner, for the purpose of loading and firing. A furtive
scratch of the head, or a wipe of the heated brow, dismissed
a whole ' bevy' into the next field ; and, in fact, the cmbarras
dc richesse was nearly as bad as if there had been no birds
at all.
" Quails are much more abundant in the Upper Provinces
than in Central India or Bengal. In the Madras Presidency
they become rare, and on the east of the Bay of Bengal arc unknown.
T In their migrations to and fro they make the Ilimala
mountains a temporary resting place, and at such seasons I
have seen astonishing numbers of them in the ripened rice
fields of Kathmandu, in Nepal. Their stay there is very
limited. At Darjccling, where there was in 1S42 little or no
open ground, this bird was unknown ; but I know not what may
be the case now. It is not very plentiful cither in the humid
plains of the Tcrai, although in some of the higher parts of
Tirhoot I have had tolerably good sport with them. In Chota
Nagpore it is in some parts plentiful, and in others, apparently
similar, not to be found. The cause of this seeming capriciousness
we could never detect, although it was much inquired into
by the sportsmen in Ranchcc and Dorunda, the head quarters,
civil and military, of that district. We used to remark that
after the fields had been cleared of their crops, and shortly
before the bird's departure to northern climes, it inhabited the
bush jungle in common with the Black and Grey Partridges
and the Bush and Button Quails. In such localities it finds
shelter and concealment and food in various kinds of wild
grasses, and is thus enabled to prolong its stay in India longer
* Refers to ante-Breech-loader days.—A. O. H.
+ Except as stragglers to Arakan and Pegu, but Colonel Tickell was referring to
Central Tenasserim, which he knew well, and to which, despite what Blyth says,
I do not believe that they extend at all, though one might be shct there, just as one
Likh was shot at Sandoway.—A, O. II.