QUAILS. 105 



to do with quail, and who do their own retrievinj^. Another 

 proof of the practical invisibility of the quail when on the 

 ground is provided by the frequent failure of the hen harrier 

 to find them. One watches one of these handsome birds 

 ijuartering a patch of dried but uncut paddy. They cross 

 and recross the ground not more than a yard above it, much 

 as a well trained pointer or setter will work, 3'et they not 

 infrequently fail where man, thanks to the noise he makes, 

 will put up the birds. The main outward difl'erence between 

 the male and the female quail is to be found in the two black 

 circlets round the throat of the former. These begin the 

 one on the outer, the other on the inner, side of one eye and 

 swing round to similar positions on the other side. 



The males are said to precede the females in migrations. 

 As a matter of fact the sexes seem to keep together only 

 during the breeding season, and it is a rare thing to find them 

 congregated in very large numbers. When the surroundings 

 are exactly to their taste quails will of course be found in 

 greater numbers, but so far as my own experience goes, they 

 never get up more than eight or ten together, and very 

 rarely more than three or four. I once came across a 

 patch of standing wheat straw from which the ears only had 

 been removed. Here, as in addition to the grain that had 

 been shed there were many seeded wild plants, and perfect 

 protection from hawks, the quail were in hundreds, but 

 even then only bevies of six or eight were flushed at one 

 time. A recent writer in "The Field" has ventured an opinion 

 that only a thirteenth quail ought to be missed. One miss 

 out of thirteen may be allowed for accidents, etc. but I am 

 inclined to think the gentleman would change the percentage 

 after a little of such practice as I got on that afternoon. 

 When, with their shrill little cry, quail scuttle away in every 

 direction like sparks from a blacksmith's anvil, the 

 sportsman is apt for a while to be bewildered. He looks at 

 this and aims at that: he changes his mind and determines to 

 bag a third, which is saved by the intervention of a fourth 

 and by that time all are out of range. Under ordinary 

 circumstances two or at most three get up together, and this 

 they do from close under one's feet, or even behind one's 

 back. This, of course, if there are no pointers or setters at 

 work. These useful assistants have quite as much partiality 

 for the scent of the quaii as they have for that of the larger 

 game birds, and in days gone by when, in the province of 

 Kiangsu, pheasants were nearly as plentiful as barn-door 

 fowl, many men strongly objected to their dogs' drawing 

 their attention to such small game. There is a fear, some- 

 times, that only partially trained dogs may get into bad 

 habits in the retrieving of quail. I had a young pointer with 



