By th Rev. A. C. Smith. 173 



away its more valuable congener, with which in flavour of flesh it 

 is not to be compared. It is a handsome species, and is common in. 

 France and the south of Europe generally. In habits it resembles 

 P. cinerea. A few stragglers from time to time have made their 

 way into Wiltshire : Mr. Marsh recorded their capture at Winter- 

 slow, and the specimen in his collection (now at Ramridge in the 

 possession of his brother M. Marsh, Esq., M.P. for Salisbury), was 

 killed at Draycot Park. Another was killed at Winterbourne 

 Monkton by my neighbour the late Mr. John Brown, and I have 

 frequently seen the bird in his possession ; and other instances will 

 doubtless occur to many sportsmen : for, thanks to the mistaken 

 zeal with which their introduction to this country has been 

 conducted, they are by no means rare now. 



" Quail." {Perdix coturnix.) Not many years since this dimin- 

 utive but plump little partridge was generally though somewhat 

 sparingly scattered over the down parishes in this neighbourhood 

 in the summer : but now it has become comparatively rare through- 

 out the county. One nest however was discovered at Yatesbury 

 since my Incumbancy in 1852 : and I have notices of the bird's 

 occurrence of late years at Christian Malford in 1841 and 1845 ; 

 in the neighbourhood of Sutton Benger in 1847 ; at Langley in 

 1851, and at Erchfont in 1856. But in all probability it might be 

 found in some part of Wiltshire every year, did not its unobtrusive 

 and even skulking habits hinder its recognition. That Quails are 

 in marvellous abundance in their favorite haunts, and that during 

 their periodical migrations their flights are prodigious, is not only 

 recorded in old time in the books of Genesis and Numbers ;^ but 

 Col. Montagu informs us that one hundred thousand have been 

 taken in one day on the west coast of the kingdom of Naples. 

 That moreover this handsome little bird is a cosmopolite, and in- 

 habits the three continents of the Old World, I can vouch, having 

 met with it in Europe, Asia, and Africa : indeed of the three 

 specimens now in my collection, the first I procured in the flesh at 

 the market of the Pantheon at Rome, and it was admirably stuffed 

 by an Otaheite girl, the only taxidermist then in the Eternal City : 

 and the others I shot on the banks of the Nile, within the tropics 

 * Exodus, xvi., 13. Numbers, xi., 31, 32. Psalms, Ixviii., 26, 29. ' 



