GALLINM. ( 190 ) PHASIANIDM. 



THE COMMON QUAIL. 



THE QUAIL. 



Coturnix communis. 



The corn-land loving Qtiayle, the daintiest of our bits. 



Drayton. 



The Quail is an occasional summer visitor to the county, 

 where it has been found in several localities. 



Mr. Peter Cowe, Lochton, has informed me that a 

 specimen was shot in a turnip field on the farm of 

 Dowlaw, in the parish of Coldingham, about 1863; and 

 two young birds were killed at Butterdean, in the parish 

 of Oldhamstocks, in 1872. Mr. John Wilson mentions 

 that it used to visit the farm of Edington Mains at wide 

 intervals, though only once has he known it remain there 

 throughout the year.^ Mr. Scott, gamekeeper, Thirlestane 

 Castle, tells me that during the Partridge shooting season 

 — about 1861 — he shot two Quails in a stubble field on 

 the farm of Bowerhouse, near Lauder, which he mistook 

 for young Partridges when they first rose to the dog's 

 point, and that they were very fat.^ Mr. Hardy records 

 that in the second week of September 1874 an example 

 was killed at Whitburn, in the parish of Cockburnspath, 

 in the Lammermuirs, by one of the Dunglass gamekeepers.^ 

 In November 1882 Mr. George Low mentioned to me that 



1 Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, vol. vi. p. 400. 



2 Yarrell says that the Hebrew name selav, in Arabic salwa, from a root 

 signifying "to be fat," is very descriptive of the round, plump form and fat flesh 

 of the Quail. — British Birds, fourth edition, vol. iii. p. 128. 



3 Hist. Ber. Nat. aub, vol. vii. p. 515. 



