QUAIL. 353 



Quail. Coturjiix cohirnix (Linn.). 



The Quail (Plate 143), our smallest game-bird, occurs 

 throughout Europe, Asia, and north Africa, and is a summer 

 visitor to all parts of the British Isles, even to the Shetlands 

 and Outer Hebrides. The majority arrive in May and depart 

 in October, but occasionally a few remain all winter. It is 

 nowhere normally plentiful, though there are good and bad 

 years ; it is a regular visitor in very irregular numbers. The 

 oft-repeated lament that this or that species is decreasing has 

 usually slight foundation, but there is a general opinion that 

 the Quail, in all parts, and especially in Ireland, is less 

 abundant than it was. I venture to doubt it. Destroyers of 

 birds for the table, both here and abroad, have been blamed, 

 but very large numbers are still captured, and there is httle 

 evidence of general diminution. The numbers of the Quail are 

 known, historically, to ebb and flow. Even supposing that the 

 bird is decreasing, it is not certain that wholesale massacre by 

 carnivorous man is entirely responsible ; geographical distribu- 

 tion is unstable. We cannot really take credit for the increase 

 of a species like the Turtle-Dove ; then why are we to blame 

 because another bird fails to get on? Species declined and 

 vanished long before man was evolved. Any year we may see 

 a temporary recovery of the Quail ; I find no evidence that 

 it was ever more than spasmodically plentiful. Indeed, I 

 believe that all statements about its decrease have founda- 

 tion in the memories of men of advancing years who have 

 recollection of the big Quail years, and forget that these were 

 exceptional. Montagu, in 1802, made exactly the same remark 

 about former abundance that writers make to-day. 



The Quail is a diminutive sandy-buff Partridge, and the two 

 birds have many common habits. As a ground bird it keeps 

 well in cover, its small size an advantage in scant herbage ; if 

 flushed by a dog, for a man seldom walks it up, it flies with 



Series II. 2 A 



