140 The Scottish Naturalist. 



edge on the rocks below; this was about 11 o'clock a.m. A 

 minute or two afterwards I saw seven or eight more light a 

 little further up, after which small trips, from three to eight or 

 fourteen birds, kept coming in quite fast, and alighting in every 

 direction. I marked some down close to me, and on going to 

 the spot up got a Quail, then another, then another, in the 

 very spot where five minutes before there was not one to be 

 seen ; the passage lasted about two hours and a-half, and by 

 two o'clock the whole of that part of the island to the westward 

 was swarming with Quail ; the wind was light and from the 

 westward, the weather dull, but not thick. 



From the direction these birds seemed to come, there is no 



doubt in my mind that they had left the coast of Tripoli 



somewhere about the Headland of Benghazi. Computing 



the distance at 500 miles, and the. rate of flight at 30 miles 



an hour, (one-third of that of the swallow,) they would 



have occupied between 16 and 17 hours in the passage, 



and consequently must have left the African coast 



between six and seven in the evening, namely at sunset, 



which is just about the time they would naturally have 



done. Though many birds fly by night, still it depends very 



much on the distance they have to go, and the rate of flight 



(according to circumstances), whether they may be able to 



make the land before day-light or not. The Quail, however, 



on its northern passage to Malta, having only little more than 200 



miles to travel, would be enabled, at the same rate, and leaving 



Africa at the same hour, to reach the land about two o'clock 



in the morning, which is the time we know they generally 



do. During a visit of some weeks to the Tunisian territory, 



and while in the vicinity of Carthage, early in April, I had 



numerous opportunities of observing the flights of Quail, which 



I have every reason to believe, in the same way as at Fano, 



reached the coast from the interior, moving in a body of 



thousands of small trips, bevies, or families, probably the 



last year's broods, if not that of the season, as there is nothing 



to show that the Quail may not have two broods in the year, 



and if they have eggs early in March in Malta, as I have found 



to be the case, why should they not be a little earlier in the 



interior of Africa? And supposing they were hatched three 



weeks sooner than in Malta, say by the middle of February, 



there would be plenty of time for the young birds to be 



sufliciently strong to migrate in the middle of April. 



