THE BIRDS OF DEVONSHIRE. 119 



more easy of access than in most other places. 

 The high fences and small fields seem to have the 

 effect of making them never very wild, so that the 

 sportsman can get almost as many shots in January as 

 in September " (Natural History and Sport, p. 129). 

 Dr. W. R. Scott writes in the " Transactions of the 

 British Association " for 1869, of Partridges 

 obtained in West Devon between 1859 and 1863, 

 which entirely lacked the usual " horseshoe " of 

 this species, and suggests that they were possibly 

 hybrids between this species and the Red-legged 

 Partridge. 



QUAIL. — Coturnix communis, Bonnat. 



A SUMMER visitant, occasionally wintering. The 

 year 1870 was a great Quail year in Devon. Mr. 

 Harting stated that the Quail nested that year on 

 Lundy Island, and that many were shot in 

 September and October, as many as three brace and 

 a half in one day (Zool. 1871. p. 2521). Quail 

 were shot the same season near Torquay, and 

 Gatcombe remarked that the species was then 

 exceptionally numerous in West Devon, apparently 

 on the autumn migration. In 1885 he commented 

 on a bird shot near Plymouth on the 23rd of 

 August, describing the Quail as " a bird seldom met 

 with in this part of the country." Upon the 2nd 

 of October in the same year, a female was captured 

 at the lantern of Bideford Lighthouse at 1 1 p.m. 



