COTURNIX COTURNIX. 603 
abdomen and on the flanks; under tail-coverts white, with broad 
blackish transverse bands ; quills pale brown, minutely spotted with 
buff on the outer webs, and towards their inner margin ; tail-feathers 
blackish, barred and tipped with white ; bill extremely stout, brown, 
with the edges and the tip yellowish; feet pale yellowish; iris 
reddish. 
In another individual, marked female, the eyebrows are rufous 
instead of white, and the lower parts are of a rufous buff without 
any spots; the throat is paler in tint; the sides of the neck and 
upper part of the breast are varied with buff on a grey ground, but 
these traces of the first plumage will disappear later on, for the buff 
tint which occupies the centre of the feathers begins to show traces 
of vanishing. 
580. Corurnix corurnix (Z.). Common Quail. 
The common Quail arrives at this, the most southern limit of its 
migration, about the end of August (sometimes as early as the 15th), 
in great numbers. At first, if the corn crops are not sufficiently . 
high to afford it the necessary cover, it frequents the grassy plains 
and stunted bushes. It breeds in the standing crops, depositing its 
eggs in a mere depression of the soil, sometimes without even a few 
shreds of grass to protect the eggs from the ground. The eggs, 
from six to twelve in number, are of a yellowish ground, more or 
less spotted and blotched with dark-brown: axis, 1” 3’; diam., 
12’”.. The young birds run the instant they are excluded, and are 
attended by both parents, who will feign lameness and tumble about 
before the dog, or hunter, in order to draw him from their brood. 
The male generally begins this manceuvre, while the female leads off 
the little chicks; but should he not succeed, she will perform the 
same tricks with tenfold more boldness, and frequently falls a prey 
to her maternal solicitude. We have had in our aviary a female 
thus captured, with two of her brood. We have observed from 
these birds that the migratory desire is evidently strongest at night. 
At this season, though perfectly quiescent during the day, our birds 
fly up and dash themselves against the wires at all hours of the 
night, particularly during moonlight. This could not have been 
from any terror, as they were quite tame at the time, feeding from 
our hands, and scratching on our palms to obtain some desired seed 
that their little quick eyes discriminated in the mass thus offered 
