COMMON QUAIL. 129 



perties possessed by the flesh of the bird. Ou arrival, the 

 shrill triple note of the male soon makes itself heard in the 

 evenings, and in this country is onomatopoetically rendered 

 by the words " wet-my-lips "; whilst to the German peasant 

 it says " Buck' den Rlick " (Bend your back). In the south 

 of France it is rendered by " J'ai du ble, j'ai pas de sa (sac)," 

 or in Provence by " Tres (trois) per un, tres per un." Every 

 one who has been in Spain, where, in spring, the caged 

 males " sing " all day, and nearly all night long, must be 

 familiar — perhaps too much so — with the castanet-like 

 " click-clic-lic " which perhaps led to the invention of 

 that instrument of music, and obtained for the bird the 

 scientific name of dactylisonans. Its call is, however, not 

 strictly dactylic, the emphasis being upon the second 

 syllable. In June in this country, but earlier on the 

 Continent, the female scrapes out a small cavity on the 

 ground, into which she collects a few bits of dry grass, 

 straw, or clover stalks ; she lays from seven to twelve 

 eggs ; nesting among wheat generally, but sometimes in a 

 piece of clover or grass. The eggs are of a yellowish or dull 

 orange-coloured white, blotched or speckled with umber-brown, 

 measuring 1"1 by "9 in. Upon these she sits about three 

 weeks ; the young are able to follow her soon after they are 

 excluded from the shell, and learn to feed on seeds, grain, 

 insects, and green leaves. Two broods, or bevies as they are 

 called, are sometimes reared in the season. Many are found 

 and killed in wheat stubbles by Partridge -shooters in the 

 month of September ; they fly quick, but generally straight 

 and low, and are difficult to raise a second time when they 

 have been once flushed and alarmed. The greater portion 

 leave this country in October. 



The food of the Quail, judging from about thirty examples 

 shot during winter and early spring, consists, according to 

 Thompson, of the seeds of such weeds as plantain, persi- 

 caria, dock, wild vetch, and chickweed ; no less than 3,500 

 seeds of the latter having been found in the crop of a single 

 bird. Another contained remains of eleven of the nutritious 

 slug Limax agrestis ; and in May the crop of another was 



VOL. III. s 



