The words were yet in his mouth, when a sudden whirring sound broke the
air, and he caught a glimpse of a second quail flying like an arrow
below the principal limbs.

Sam raised his rifle as quick as a flash, took aim as best he could, and
fired. Even the great Dr. Carver would have missed under such
circumstances, and the lad came nowhere near hitting the game.

So swift was the flight of the bird, that as soon as the trigger was
pulled and Sam looked for it it had vanished. That man who handles the
rifle must be wonderfully skillful to bring down one of those birds on
the wing.

It is curious how the name of the common quail is disputed and varied.
There are plenty who will insist that I should have called this bird a
partridge, when, in point of fact, there is no true representative of
the partridge in America.

The spruce partridge is the Canada grouse; the partridge of New England
is the ruffed grouse; the partridge of the Middle and Southern States is
the quail, of which several varieties are called partridges; while in
Europe the birds which are called quails are in reality partridges.

Without tiring my readers by attempting anything like a scientific
discussion of the question, I may say there are a dozen species of
quails found in North and Central America and the West Indies, and Mr.
Baird proposes that, as neither the name quail, partridge, nor pheasant
is properly given to any American bird, the species to which I refer
should be called the Bob White.