Quail in War and Peace

"Levitan the painter and I went out to the woodcock mating area yesterday evening. He fired at a woodcock and the bird, wounded in the wing, fell in a puddle. I picked it up. It had a long beak, large black eyes, and magnificent plumage. It looked at us in wonder. What were we to do with it? Levitan closed his eyes and begged me, 'Please, smash its head in with the rifle.' I said I couldn't. Levitan kept twitching his head and begging me. And the woodcock kept looking on in wonder. I had to obey Levitan and kill it. And then two idiots went home and sat down to dinner leaving one less beautiful, adored creature in the world."

--Anton Chekhov
Letter to his friend Suvorin, April 8, 1892

Perhaps Cheney should have whacked Whittington's skull in as the wounded lawyer looked up at him in wonder, while the covey of bobwhite quail rejoiced at the happy chance of Whittington's head and upper chest intercepting the Vice President's salvo from his 28-gauge shotgun.

Even so, the bobwhite and scaled quail have little to cheer about these days. Quality-of-life indicators for the little bird have been on a steady downward tangent ever since the late nineteenth century. When the early settlers came, quail were abundant, flourishing where natural grasslands were interspersed with forests. Indian burn policies helped too. By the mid-nineteenth century you could buy a dozen quail for 25 cents. A single hunter could kill a hundred, even 200 in a day, sometimes in a single haul if he used nets.

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