262 Wild Birds and their Haunts 



that 30,000 quails, valued at over £1,500, were burnt to 

 death in the aviary of a large dealer at Wood Green, 

 London, where they were being fattened for market 

 on hemp-seed, millet, &c. If there were the least likeli- 

 hood of quails ever becoming exterminated by a world- 

 wide traffic in them, it would not need an international 

 convention of ornithologists to put the machinery of 

 the law in operation. If the British Customs House 

 officers were to receive instructions to report for prosecu- 

 tion such owners and masters of ocean and Channel 

 steamers as had live quail on board, a system of cold 

 storage would probably be initiated forthwith. Person- 

 ally I do not see the necessity of enforcing the law 

 as to the keeping of such so-called British game-birds 

 as quails in captivity during the breeding season when 

 they are known to be imported, for not only are they as 

 proverbially numerous as the sands of the desert, but 

 they are in high demand in all countries as an article of 

 food. In " Troilus and Cressida," that " honest fellow 

 enough, and one that likes quails," was no bad judge of 

 flesh ; he must surely have been an epicure. At the 

 Cawood Castle banquet given by Archbishop Neville of 

 York in 1466, a hundred dozen ' ' quayles " were provided; 

 and Earl Percy's house-book for as early as 1512 shows 

 that no feast was ever held at Wressell and Leconfield 

 Castles without a great number of fat " quayles " appear- 

 ing on the table. 



From a naturalist's and a sportsman's point of view, 

 it is much to be regretted that so few quail reach the 

 English and Irish shores nowadays for the purpose of 

 breeding. They have always been more abundant in 

 Ireland than in England. A very limited number are seen 

 each year in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, but 

 rarely further north. Though preferring sandy ground 

 where rye is grown, and disdaining damp clay soils, the 

 quail has yet been reported as breeding some years since 

 in the vicinity of Yorkshire's busiest towns. A pair was 

 seen in the vicarage gardens at Danby-in-Cleveland in 

 Canon Atkinson's time. A nest containing eleven eggs 

 was found on a railway embankment in East Yorkshire in 



