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We agreed with him in that respect, but didn't see how he could serve us further by assuming the ghost line. "Then I'll tell you," the shepherd said. "One half of the coveys who saw me by this time think that they have been frightened by a shadow, a white bullock, or a horse.
As a partridge is a small bird, and stands at about a shilling in the poacher's catalogue, he does not care to risk a shot at one, but likes to get several at once. This he can do in the spring, when the birds have paired and remain so near together, and again in the latter part of the summer, when the coveys are large, not having yet been much broken up by the sportsmen.
He talked learnedly of hunting, quoting written authorities upon this or that point, of whom the unenlightened Virginians had never heard, much less read; equipped himself for the sport in a bewildering arsenal of new-fangled guns, game-bags, shot-pouches, and powder-horns, with numerous belts, diagonal, perpendicular, and horizontal, and in the field carried his gun a la Winkle; never, by any happy accident, brought down his bird, but was continually outraging sporting rules by firing out of time, and flushing coveys prematurely by unseasonable talking and precipitate strides in advance of his disgusted companions.
But now the young coveys were full-fledged and strong of wing, well able to care for themselves. The young ducks were full grown, and no longer needed their mother's guardianship and teaching.
An instant after we were landed, one after the other, in about two yards of water upon an even sand. Captain Nemo made a sign with his hand, and we followed him by a gentle declivity till we disappeared under the waves. Over our feet, like coveys of snipe in a bog, rose shoals of fish, of the genus monoptera, which have no other fins but their tail.
Everything was there, and of the best quality, just as if I had spent a whole fortnight knocking about Plymouth and ordering things. Clearly, if this cruise came to grief, it would not be for want of equipment. Just as I was beginning on the lockers and the drawers, the watch reported icebergs on both bows and, what was more to the point, coveys of Polar bears on the icebergs.
Douglass spent a year under Coveys ministrations, and his life there may be summed up in his own words: "I had neither sufficient time in which to eat nor to sleep, except on Sundays.
Large coveys of partridge-pigeons rose from the burnt grass as we passed along, and ducks and pelicans were numerous on the stretches of water in the bed of the river.
The country wore the same aspect, till at last the fine green turf became more wearisome than a dusty turnpike road. These birds do not go in coveys, nor do they conceal themselves like the English kind. It appears a very silly bird. A man on horseback by riding round and round in a circle, or rather in a spire, so as to approach closer each time, may knock on the head as many as he pleases.
The sun was already setting, the evening was warm and quiet; the circle of the heavens, here and there strewn with little clouds, was azure on high, but rosy in the west; the little clouds foretold fine weather, being light and shining—here like flocks of sheep sleeping on the greensward, there of somewhat smaller size, like coveys of teal.
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