COMMON QUAIL. 429 



COTURNIX VULGARIS, Fleming. 

 COMMON QUAIL. 



Sir Thomas Browne alludes to there being " no small 

 number of Quails" in Norfolk in liis time, but although 

 still reckoned amongst our regular summer visitants, all 

 local authors, since the commencement of the present 

 century, agree as to the marked diminution in the numbers 

 of this species of late years. This change in its habits^ 

 however, to whatever cause attributable, is by no means 

 peculiar to our own county, having been noticed by 

 Montagu, Selby, Jardine, Yarrell, and most other 

 British ornithologists, as observable throughout its 

 entire range in this country. Mr. A. G. More, who 

 has lately devoted much time and labour to ascertaining 

 the distribution, at the present day, of such species as 

 nest in Great Britain,'^ describes the quail as ^^ thinly 

 scattered during the breeding season from the south of 

 England to the North of Scotland, yet there are few 

 counties in which the quail is considered to breed 

 annually ; nor can these be grouped in any manner so as 

 to show where the species is most numerous. It has 

 certainly decreased of late years in several districts, and 

 this apparently not owing to any cause that can be 

 discovered. In the west of Ireland the same diminution 

 has been noticed, -h- -^ ^ jf there is any difference, 

 the range of the quail seems to incline rather to the east 

 side of Great Britain as well as of Ireland during the 

 breeding season." 



As long since as 1826, Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear 

 thus mention the scarcity of quails both in Norfolk and 

 Suffolk, as compared with earher periods of which they 



* " On the distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the 

 nesting season," by A. G. More, F.L.S. " Ibis," 1865. 



