In all which, by the way, I
quite agree with you. But I don't want to lose the rest of your
lucubrations on this most interesting topic. What do you think becomes
of the birds in August, after the moult begins?"
"Verily, Commodore, that is a positive poser. Many good sportsmen
believe that they remain where they were before; getting into the
thickest and wettest brakes, refusing to rise before the dog, and giving
out little or no scent!"
"Do you believe this?"
"No; I believe there is a brief migration, but whither I cannot tell you
with any certainty. Some birds do stay, as they assert; and that a few
do stay, and do give out enough scent to enable dogs to find them, is a
proof to me that all do not. A good sportsman can always find a few
birds even during the moult, and I do not think that birds killed at
that time are at all worse eating than others. But I am satisfied that
the great bulk shift their quarters, whither I have not yet fully
ascertained; but I believe to the small runnels and deep swales which
are found throughout all the mountain tracts of the middle States; and
in these, as I believe, they remain dispersed and scattered in such
small parties that they are not worth looking after, till the frost
drives them down to their old haunts.
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