^ 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Tlie Common QuaQ. — Its Habits. — Migrations. — The Bishop of QuaiLs. 

 The Gi'eat Bustard. — Their Love-Season. — Mode of Capture. — The 

 Little and the Ruffed Bustard. 



'"I^HE Common Quail [JFaktcl, Liten Rapphona, or little 

 -■- partridge, Sw. ; Var/tel, Norw. ; PerdLv Coturnix, 

 Lath.) was rare in the vicinity of Honnum, as also in the 

 west of Sweden; but in certain localities near the eastern 

 coast, and iu Scania, it is not so very uncommon. It 

 would seem to be on the increase in the Peninsula, and, 

 as with the Partridge, gradually to find its way farther to 

 the north. Its limits in that direction are not very well 

 ascertained, but within a recent period it has been met 

 with somewhat beyond the 60° of lat. That these birds 

 are generally scarce may, however, be inferred from the 

 fact that, during my long residence in Sweden, I never 

 met with but a solitary specimen, and that was during 

 the past autumn in the province of Ilalland. 



" In Norway," Professor Rasch writes to me, " the 

 Quail is, at times, tolerably common ; but some seasons one 

 hardly hears the call-note of a single one. I found them 



N 



