1^56 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



exposed for sale in the shops*, and, that in various parts of the 

 counties of Down and Antrim, a friend when snipe- shooting at that 

 season always meets with them in patches of cultivated ground lying 

 between one bog and another. In some winters he has remarked 

 quails to be as common as they are in autumn, at the commence- 

 ment of the partridge-shooting season. So many as ten brace were 

 shot by a young sportsman during a forenoon in the winter of 1837- 

 38, in stubble-fields adjacent to Belfast bay f- More have wintered 

 here in the comparatively mild seasons of the last dozen years than 

 formerly. But that quails have for a long time past remained per- 

 manently in some quantity in the counties last named, I have the 

 testimony of a veteran sportsman, who, from meeting with them 

 every winter for the last sixty-five years, had always looked upon 

 them as indigenous, and not as migratory birds. In the letter from 

 Mr. J. V. Stewart before referred to, that gentleman mentions his 

 having met with the quail at the end of January about Letterkenny ; 

 and Mr. George Bowen, of Burt, in the north of the same county 

 (Donegal), informs me that five or six brace can easily be obtained 

 there in the course of a day's shooting about Christmas J. 



Over the continent of Europe, including the most southern por- 

 tions, the quail is looked upon only as a summer visitant, excepting 

 in Portugal, where it is found throughout the year, and " more nu- 

 merously in winter than in summer §." This is a highly interesting 

 fact, considered in connection with the wintering of the species in 

 Ireland. Thus, from its remaining permanently in the most western 

 part of the southern portion of Continental Europe, and the most 

 western island in a considerably higher latitude, it would seem that 

 the influence of the Atlantic Ocean is the predisposing cause, by coun- 

 teracting the severity of winter in a twofold manner, both as to the 

 feeling of cold and the facility of procuring food. Colonel Sykes, 

 in a most valuable memoir on the Quails and Hemipodii of India ||, 

 in which an ample acquaintance with these birds is manifested, co- 

 incides with Temminck in the opinion, that " quails emigrate for 

 food, rather than to enjoy an equable climate ;" in proof of which it 

 is mentioned, that " the great changes of temperature in India do 

 not influence the movements of this species, food being abundant at 

 all seasons:" — the common quail of Europe is resident there. There 



* Feb. Ij 1842. The chief dealer in quails in Belfast assured me that 

 the number of these birds purchased by him in the last three months, or 

 throughout the winter, would average about three dozen a week ; on one 

 day five dozen were brought to him. Being fat and in high condition, they 

 were readily sold at from 8^^. to Is. a brace. 



f Some details of numbers killed will be found in the communication 

 last alluded to. 



X Montagu states that — •" In October they leave us, and return south, 

 leaving some few (probably of a later brood) behind to brave the severity of 

 our winter." To this Mr. Selby is disposed to assent. In Ireland a fair 

 proportion of adult birds of both sexes is shot throughout the winter. 



§ Selby, vol. i. p. 438. 



II Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, vol. ii, ; and largely 

 quoted in Yarrell's ' Brit. Birds.' 



