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Bob White — Part 3
Images coming soon.
"It is a glorious day: come, let us kill something!" says London Punch's famous sportsman; and when the splendor of autumn glorifies our fields and woods, domed by a sky of clearest, most intense blue, and the keen, frosty, sparkling air invigorates both mind and body, the American sportsman likewise takes down his light, short gun and some shells loaded with No. 8 shot, whistles up his dog, which nearly twists himself inside out with happiness, and at sunrise is off. Now the coveys are feeding in the field of buckwheat--a favorite resort--or in the stubble of the corn, rye, or oat fields, or along the ditches and clearings fringed with undergrowth, or in the vineyard or orchard--just where it is the dog's business, not the author's, to disclose. The seed of the locust, wild pease, tick, trefoil, sunflower, smartweed, partridge berry, wintergreen and nanny berries, acorns, and beechnuts do not complete the Bob Whites' menu. Late in the forenoon, the hearty breakfast having at length ended, a bevy of birds will first slake their thirst before huddling together to preen and dust their feathers and enjoy a midday siesta on a sunny slope. They keep near water during droughts; but after long rains, look for them on the dry uplands and along the sunniest coverts, not too early on a frosty morning, when they are likely to remain huddled together late to keep warm until the hoar frost melts in the sunshine. These birds have a unique manner of sleeping: forming a circle on the ground, in a sheltered open, beyond thickets where prowling fox and weasel lurk, they squat close together as they can huddle to save heat, and with their tails toward the centre, and their heads pointing outward to detect danger from every possible direction, rest secure through the night and sometimes part of cold and stormy days, the male parent usually remaining outside the ring to act as sentinel. As winter approaches, they leave the open, cultivated fields to withdraw into sheltered thickets and bottom lands, sometimes to alder swamps. Now, when hunger often pinches cruelly, the food scattered for barnyard fowls is fearlessly picked up; indeed, these birds haunt the outskirts of farms at all seasons, following the pioneer and railroad westward, and ever going more than half way in establishing friendly relations between themselves and mankind. While all efforts to domesticate them have ended in runaways when the nesting season came around and wild birds whistled enticing notes of happiness and freedom, protection from the shooters, and a few handfuls of buckwheat scattered about for them in the bitter weather are all the encouragement these appreciative little neighbors need to keep them about the farm. Like the ruffed grouse they will allow the snow to bury them, or voluntarily bury themselves in it to escape extreme cold; but an ice crust forming over a sleeping covey often imprisons it, alas! and not until a thaw is the tragedy revealed in a circle of feathered skeletons.
A loud whir-r-r-r-r-r-r, as a flushed flock rises to wing, indicates something of the speed at which the Bob Whites rush through the air. They are not migratory, usually remaining resident wherever found, although from the northern boundary of their range coveys seen travelling afoot in autumn certainly appear to be going toward warmer winter quarters. Rising at a considerable angle from the ground, on stiff, set, short wings, after a flushing, the birds, heading for a wooded cover, are off in a strung out line that only the tyro imagines makes an easy target. Suddenly dropping all at once and not far from each other, squatting close, in the confidence inspired by the perfect mimicry of their plumage with their surroundings, each bird must be almost trodden upon before it will rise to wing. Very rarely they take refuge in trees. It has been said a Bob White can retain its odor voluntarily, since the best of pointers often fails to find it even when within a few feet. When lying close, the wings are pressed against the side, every feather clings tightly with a tension produced by fear, in all probability, rather than by any voluntary act; but the result is that by flying upward, rather than running and giving the scent to the dogs, and by compressing its feathers on dropping to the ground again, brave little Bob White often gives the sportsman a lively chase for his game. After much shooting, birds become "educated." Wonderfully clever they are in matching the sportsman's tricks with better ones. They school the wing shots finely until the crack marksman confesses his chagrin. The best trained dog may bushwhack an entire slope, where they are known to be scattered, without flushing one; for vainly does the dog draw now. His usefulness was greatest in standing a covey before the reports from the gun gave fair warning that no one-sided sport had begun.