230 COTURNIX DACTYLISONANS. 



are often kept in cages on the continent. Quails are caught 

 in various ways, usually by nets or traps, into which they are 

 led by imitating their cries ; and in autumn are shot like other 

 field game. 



Their arrival in England takes place about the middle of 

 May. They never appear with us in great numbers, but com- 

 ing quietly, like the Corn Crake, spread over the country un- 

 observed, and are pretty generally distributed, although no- 

 where plentiful, and in the northern counties very rare. It is 

 seldom that they are now met with in Scotland ; yet even 

 there the species is not to be considered as one of the very 

 rarest birds, as specimens now and then come into the hands 

 of the bird-stuffers. I have heard of its occurring in Moray- 

 shire ; but the most northern locality known to me with cer- 

 tainty is the parish of Towie in Aberdeenshire, whence my 

 friend Mr. Craigie sent me twelve eggs that were found in a 

 grass field by a mower. They are from an inch and a twelfth 

 to an inch and two-twelfths long, their greatest transverse dia- 

 meter ten-twelfths or a little more, reddish-wdiite tinged with 

 green, dotted and spotted all over with dark brown. 

 - The Quail is the smallest and the last in order of our Ra- 

 sores. In appearance and habits it shews some aflSnity to a few 

 of our Huskers, especially the Corn Bunting, as well as to the 

 Lark, and more especially the Corn Crake, which belong to dif- 

 ferent orders. 



