. New England bird life: being a manual of New England ornithology; . standpoint, hasbeen ascribed in general terms to all New England, asby Dr. Brewer for example, but certainly upon hastyconclusions. Though, owing to its habit of colonizingparticular spots beyond its general range, and to someextent to its habit of moving back and forth from capriceor according to vicissitudes of the weather, it is diflfi-cult to trace the exact limit of its northward dispersion, 158 TETRAONID^ : GROUSE. the bird may be said to inhabit at present only the threesouthern New England States. That it overlaps at
. New England bird life: being a manual of New England ornithology; . standpoint, hasbeen ascribed in general terms to all New England, asby Dr. Brewer for example, but certainly upon hastyconclusions. Though, owing to its habit of colonizingparticular spots beyond its general range, and to someextent to its habit of moving back and forth from capriceor according to vicissitudes of the weather, it is diflfi-cult to trace the exact limit of its northward dispersion, 158 TETRAONID^ : GROUSE. the bird may be said to inhabit at present only the threesouthern New England States. That it overlaps attimes, or in particular localities, into the other three, isdoubtless a fact. It is a true component of the Alle-ghanian and other more southern Faunae, its rangebeing complementary to that of the Spruce Grouse,Canace canadensis: and the scattering coveys in south-ern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are ratherevidence of this fact than of the assumption that thebird should be considered native to New England atlarge. The range appears, moreover, to have been arti-. FiG. 34. — Bill and Foot of Quail. ficially restricted of late years as a consequence of thepersecution to which the birds are always subjected. Infine, Massachusetts is practically the limit of the Bob-white, and it is not found to be numerously or evenlydistributed throughout that State. A contributor to Minots Birds of New Englandhas prepared the following agreeable sketch: TheQuail are abundant in the three Southern States of NewEngland, except in the colder and more hilly are not found much to the east or north of Bos-ton, in the neighborhood of which, however, they areresident throughout the year. Our observations on ORTYX VIRGINIANA : THE QUAIL, OR BOB-WHITE. 159 them naturally begin at that season of the year whenthey relinquish the habits of extreme cunning and vigi-lance for that of confidence in mans respect tor domes-tic life, that is inthe early part ofsummer. Thoughamong the har-diest a
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