198 QUAIL. 



Genus— COTURNIX. 

 COTURNIX COMMUNIS— Quail. 



An honest fellow enough, and one that loves Quails. 



Shakespeare— Tj-oiYus ajid Cressida V., 1. 



The corn-land loving Quayle, the loveliest of our bits. 



Dray ton — Polyolhion. 



Quails abound on all the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. 

 They are the most productive of all winged creatures, says a French 

 naturalist. They migrate north and south, in spring and autumn, 

 in enormous quantities. The migration of Quails to certain Islands 

 in the Archipelago, is what the migration of herrings is to Holland 

 and Scotland. It gives occupation to the inhabitants for some two 

 months of the year, and a profit that lasts much longer. The 

 Bishop of the Island of Capri, in the Bay of Naples, is said to 

 derive a revenue of ;£" 1,000 a year from his Quails ; as many as 

 160,000 having been taken on that island alone, in a single year. 



Canon Tristram in his " Natural History of the Bible " thinks 

 that the Quails brought to the camp of the Israelites (Exodus xvi., 

 13, and Numbers xi., 31, 32) were on their northern spring 

 migration from Africa. He himself, in Algeria, found, at daybreak, 

 the ground covered with Quails for an extent of many acres, 

 where on the preceding afternoon there had not been one. They 

 would scarcely move, even when almost trodden upon ; and on 

 another occasion, in Palestine, he caught several with his hand. 



Quails arrive in England in May, and leave in October. They 

 soon make their presence known in spring, by their shrill triple note 

 uttered almost all day long, " Whit-whit-whit," " Wet-my-lips," or 

 " Click-clic-lick," as it may be variously interpreted. They are like 

 diminutive Partridges in their habits, and also in their food, except 

 that they live more on green plants, and on the seeds of weeds, 

 grass, plantain, dock, persicaria, wild-vetch, and chickweed.* 

 They are also fond of slugs, and insects, beetles, flies, etc. They 



*Three thousand five hundred seeds of chickweed have been found in the crop 

 of a single bird. 



