Quail of the Kalmias

Just as I had found a splendid flight of Wilson snipe where I least expected them, so too, I have found quail where many good hunters would never dream of looking for them. These birds are said never to migrate, but unquestionably they move considerable distances as the frosts come on and as their autumn cover gets thin. Repeatedly at twilight on an October day, I have seen large coveys rise of their own accord, attain unusual height and head off in a southerly direction; and every quail hunter has had the experience of finding coveys in places where, a short time before, none were known to be.

Wherever bobwhite is found, he will have a regular feeding ground and a regular sanctuary. Immediate shelter from danger is as essential to him as food; one preserves his life as essentially as the other. In the Deep South, quail will take refuge from peril in swamps, along briered ditch-banks, in marshes and even across rivers. In Maryland and Virginia, they usually take to friendly patches of woods, to wild ravines and even to dense smothers of wild honeysuckle.

In southern Pennsylvania, about which I am writing—a region that represents, in the East, the northern limit of this fine bird in natural abundance—one of his favorite retreats is into the mountains where he finds admirable shelter in the great laurel thickets that clothe with eternal greenery the lonely glades of these wild hills. 

As this type of quail shooting has something different about it and is exceedingly sporty, I believe that my fellow huntsmen may like to hear some account of my experiences with this beloved and wily bird as he is found close to the bases of the picturesque Tuscaroras.

I think it is true that quail develop habits in keeping with their environment. While, in a sense, like people, they are always the same, nevertheless their manner of behavior differs in separate localities. They all have the same heritage, but they vary in character somewhat with their surroundings. In the South, for example, the birds of the cultivated lands have different ways from those of the pine barrens. So these quail, which are bred close to the mountains, vary from the birds of the lowlands and the wide valleys. They are true highlanders, and they have preserved an intensely wild and romantic spirit. Big and strong, they have managed to take on some of the superb speed of the ruffed grouse.

In this part of southern Pennsylvania, the Tuscarora Range is only about 800 feet high, but the hills are rugged and slope rather sharply to the pleasant farmlands of the Cumberland Valley, which of old was a happy hunting-ground for the Indians who ranged between the Susquehanna and the Potomac. Now, the whole valley is cultivated, up to the very edges of the mountain-slopes. Within the shadow of these lie long wheat fields, separated from one another by ancient stone walls and briered fencerows. Tiny rivulets from springs trickle down the gullies along the fences high in the hills.

Here, then, we have ideal quail conditions: water, food, good loafing places and a nearby sanctuary in the mountain itself. And here, in these stubble fields and in the adjoining thickets, I have for a matter of 30 years, enjoyed as sporty quail shooting as can be had, I think, anywhere in America. These birds are big, they are wise, they fly almost like grouse and they know more tricks about getting away than a debutante knows about getting her man. Sometimes they lie unbelievably close. They light in trees. They run long distances. And occasionally they take a flight that looks as if it were intended for a world tour. But some real memories of my adventures with them will do more to convince you than general statements.

Except under unusual circumstances, these birds always roost in the fields. I remember going out one misty November morning at daybreak with Bell, my old Llewellin setter. She was at that time old and slow, but she was infallible. She was then seven. From the time she was five years old, I do not recall ever having to tell her what to do. I would just get out of the car in bird country and follow her. A good dog knows the habits of quail and where they are likely to be at certain times of the day.

Bell began to trail almost as soon as we were in the stubble field. About 200 yards from the fringes of the mountain, right in the valley-end of the wheat field, she came to a stand. Experience had taught me that these birds would fly straight for the mountain, regardless of where they were flushed in the field. If I walked ahead into them, I would have a right-hand or a left-hand shot at the covey streaming by, or perhaps they would go straight over my head, which makes the chance an awkward one. If I wanted a straightaway shot, I would have to go round them, so they would rise between me and the heavy cover they would surely seek.

When Bell drew to her point in the brown stubble, I thought it would be sporty to walk right in, compelling myself to take the birds at a quartering shot as they passed me to escape into their mountain haunts. What they did always seemed to me about as adroit a maneuver as this crafty little aristocrat ever executes. They rose in two small groups, one led by the old cock and the other by the old hen. There was a difference in intelligence, though not in the size of the birds. Separated by only a few yards, the two groups came hurtling by on either side of me in strong, low, level flight.

Of course, the thing I did was a foolish one; for when a dog draws to a point on quail, the first thing for a hunter to do is to scrutinize the adjacent country to discover where the flushed birds are likely to go. Depend upon it, they have a sanctuary in mind before they are flushed. It may be a patch of woods, a creekbank, a briered fencerow, a laurel thicket. Since the direction of your approach will not make them change their minds as to where they are going, the sensible maneuver is to work around behind the covey until the probable refuge lies dead ahead. Then and only then can the hunter be sure of a normal chance at straightaways.

Perhaps one reason why the amateur or the careless quail hunter does not really make good at this exacting game is that he takes too little into account certain standard habits of these fine birds. So many hunters blindly fight their game. But hunting is essentially a matching of wits instead of a physical contest. All the effort and all the endurance in the world will not count if there is a lack of wary intelligence.

With my right I made one of those perfect misses—perhaps the most ordinary of all shots. My second barrel brought a bird down. In a minute, the fine covey had crossed the field, topped the fence, risen high above the first fringing thickets of the mountain and had been lost to sight among a growth of pine and hemlocks.

Whether I follow a covey into such a place depends entirely on how ambitious I am feeling. As the day was young, and as I had not as yet distinguished myself, and as Bell would have it no other way, we entered this difficult fastness. Here are jungles of sassafras and birch, rising out of a low sea of kalmias; here are evergreens and massive oaks and stretches of young locust; here are patches of wild raspberries, blackberries whose canes are big brutes, and smothers of wild grape and honeysuckle. And in a place like this, hunting quail is likely to be a romp of some kind, merry or otherwise.

I had marked the birds down by a towering dead chestnut, but it was nearly a hundred yards farther on that Bell began to get interested. She fell into a stealthy walk, now pausing, then stepping forward like a ghost trailing a ghost. These quail of the kalmias never seem to stay put. They keep moving ahead of dog and man, and they usually move as a covey. After their long flight from the field, they alight almost together and then proceed to take a swift sneak. If they are followed, they keep on going. And sometimes they flush out of gunshot. In these thickets, with their dense undergrowth of thick evergreens and the birds as big and as wild as they are, I think the shooting is every whit as difficult as that on grouse, perhaps more so, because the hurtling targets are so much smaller.

On the far edge of a little rise the laurels temporarily end. And it is in this green fringe that Bell finally comes to a halt. A man never quite gets used to a big covey’s explosion in his face, and under the conditions described, if he can get in both barrels, he is lucky. As I walk forward, making a noise that cannot be helped, the birds run again, cluttering; then they are off. And how! This time their flight is eerie and enigmatic. Some slip off on almost noiseless wings in a low, terrifically fast but unerring flight. Some rocket upward to the treetops and drop on set wings toward some far sanctuary.

One bird spiraled upward, making almost as much noise as a grouse. This one I managed to get. But before I could put my gun on a second, they were all out of range. Up the mountain they had gone, into one of my favorite grouse haunts. Here, then, would be a double chance. They would fly, I knew, on the average of about 200 yards. They don’t go so far in the woods as they will from the field into their mountain fastness. As every hunter knows, a covey will have its natural place of safety, and when once in it, will be loath to leave. I have seen a quail rise in a little thicket, spin round a corner and drop again into the cover, not over 30 yards from the rise.

The birds were now scattered, and if old Bell’s nose was anything better than a decoration, she would find some of them. In such cover, while the bevy will be exceedingly restless and light-footed, single birds, even in the bare woods upon the dead leaves, will lie exceedingly close—in fact, uncomfortably so. There is a psychological distance at which a quail should rise, and anything short of this is likely to be as unfortunate for the hunter as if the quail got away out of range.

These woods have a strange picturesqueness of their own. While they are almost primeval in their wildness, the reminder of a grim calamity with which man had nothing to do is constantly evident. All the chestnut trees are dead from the blight—the only disease, so foresters tell me, that destroyed a whole species in wide reaches of its range.

By the base of one of these dead patriarchs Bell suddenly hesitated and then froze. I have often wondered how frequently a bird dog sees the game it is pointing, and whether sight of it makes for stanchness or otherwise. There seems to be a strange light in the eyes of a standing dog, as if it were in a trance.

In this case Bell was “sleeping” on her point. She was as certain that she had game as if she saw it. I was at the time on an old animal trail that wound easily up the wooded slope. As the leaves were damp, I could step forward almost without sound. The bird must be behind the big chestnut, I thought.

 Before edging nearer, I took a look for the chances for a shot, for in the woods one of these preliminary surveys is often mighty helpful. Directly in the probable line of flight were two big hemlocks, between the dusky intertwining arms of which was a lane of light. The dark trees were only 30 yards off.

If it were a grouse, I thought, I know just where he would go.

Hardly had the thought crossed my mind when I heard a slight rustle in the leaves behind a tree and, in an instant, a lordly cock grouse was up and away. Straight as a rocket for that aperture between the hemlocks he headed and instinctively I aimed at the right place. So great was his speed that he fell fully 10 yards beyond the point at which he started to fall. Here was luck indeed! And the quail were still ahead of me.

Retrieving my princely bird, I followed Bell into a dogwood thicket, in which, her instinct declared, our birds were. She was right. In 10 minutes she had made six points and I had shot three more quail. To be an honest man, I must not forget the detail of missing four, including a double. But if we could kill every one we shot at, where would be the sport, and how many birds would be left at the end of a season?

My old dog and I returned to the stubble fields, which lie parallel to one another below the slope of the mountain and stretch for some three or four miles. In each field, there is sure to be one covey; sometimes I have found four in one field. And all these birds act just alike. The minute they are flushed, they head for their home in the hills, as I have described.

About noon, when I had almost my limit, I found an old spring in an abandoned orchard, and there Bell and I had a humble lunch together, share and share alike. It had turned out to be a mellow autumn day, with the woods as fragrant as winesap apples, with tawny leaves drifting lazily down, with a golden haze over the world. Far behind me in the mountain I could hear the scattered coveys calling together. These mountain birds use their wings a good deal more than the birds of the open valleys, and fly together at the gathering call. Occasionally, in this way, two coveys get together, which leads me to tell of a remarkable experience I had in the laurels near the top of these same Tuscaroras one winter day.

I had taken out some ears of corn to spike on short bushes for the wild turkeys. There was a little snow on the ground, and in it I noticed a good many quail tracks. As they were fresh, I followed them out of the grapevine-hung dogwood thicket into the kalmias. After a while I saw the birds running on the snow ahead of me. 

Then, what I supposed to be the covey got up. But the getting-up business would not stop. After at least 30 had gone out on the laurel, I began to count, and by the time the flushing ceased,
87 quail had been counted. How is that for a covey?

“Now let me tell one,” you say.

But this story is true, and it serves to disclose a habit of these dwellers in the kalmias that is worth recording. In the dead of winter, these coveys from the valley climb the mountain to the shelter of the laurel, and there they naturally come together. Old lumbermen have told me that the birds always congregate in the winter. Moreover, in blizzard weather they seek out an overhanging rock shelter, where they remain dry and warm until the storm has passed—in this way imitating perfectly what the ancient Indians used to do. Under the same rock shelter on the shoulders of these wild Tuscarora hills, I have found modern quail roosts and old-time Indian arrowheads!

This congregating of the birds does not take place until after the hunting season has closed, but even if it did, I do not think that the gunner could do much with these birds in a place like that. Immense boulders are grimly strewn among many pines and hemlocks; the footing is precarious and the birds, when they rise, spread out in an immense fan all over the least accessible places. Besides, these birds of the hills develop both a speed of flight and a finesse of dodging that are superior to anything the field birds can show. Hunting these quail in such a place is worse than following the Astor markhor or the Nubian ibex.

As soon as spring comes, these wary mountaineers troop once more into the smiling valley, pair off and raise their coveys of little patrician hillbillies—if you’ll admit the paradox. And after them, when the season opens once again, will come an old quail hunter with his aging setter Bell, to try to make life a somewhat lively affair for the brown birds.

You may remember that my hunt broke off when Bell and I were drowsing in the old orchard. We did better than drowse. When I woke up, it was nearly three o’clock, and Bell was whining over my prostrate form.

“Old girl,” I said, “we have a grouse and eight quail . . . enough, for one day. Going home, I might kill a rabbit for you on the fly, if you don’t chase him too hard. But no more birds—until tomorrow.” ν

Note: “Quail of the Kalmias” is a chapter in Rutledge’s Hunter’s Choice published by A.S. Barnes and Company, New York, in 1946.