LVII.  ABOUT QUAIL.

William Post Hawes (b. 1803, d.1842) was born in New York City. and was a graduate of Columbia College.  He was a lawyer by profession.  His writings consist mainly of essays, contributed to various newspapers and magazines, and show great descriptive power.  He was a frequent contributor to the “Spirit of the Times,” under the title of “Cypress, Jr.,” on various sporting topics.  After his death a collection of his writings was published in two volumes, entitled, “Sporting Scenes” and “Sundry Sketches.”

1.  The quail is peculiarly a domestic bird, and is attached to his birthplace and the home of his forefathers.  The various members of the aquatic families educate their children in the cool summer of the far north, and bathe their warm bosoms in July in the iced waters of Hudson Bay; but when Boreas scatters the rushes where they had builded their bedchambers, they desert their fatherland, and fly to disport in the sunny waters of the south.

2.  The songsters of the woodland, when their customary crops of insects and berries are cut off in the fall, gather themselves to renew their loves and get married in more genial climes.  Presently, the groves so vocal, and the sky so full, shall be silent and barren.  The “melancholy days” will soon be here; only thou, dear Bob White, wilt remain.

3.  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 springtime, 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 barnyard, and sing for you upon the boughs of the apple tree by your gateway.

4.  When warm May first wooes the young flowers to open and receive her breath, then begin the cares and responsibilitie 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 expectant brood in peace.

5.  Oats harvest arrives, and the fields are waving with yellow grain.  Now be wary, O 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.

6.  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.