HE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 223 



Denmark, often in such vast numbers as to defy calculation. 

 Millions and millions again cross the Mediterranean Sea. 

 They are netted wholesale in many countries on their 

 spring migration from Africa, the first great catches being 

 male birds, which the experts take easily by simulating 

 the call of the females. 



Some of the Central European Powers have at different 

 times intervened to protect quails during the breeding 

 season. Great numbers are, however, still shipped from 

 France, from Mediterranean and Adriatic ports, and even 

 from the Grecian Archipelago, in defiance of a statute 

 which penalises any person found in possession of live 

 birds scheduled for protection during the breeding season. 

 Only in July, last year, I saw a report in the newspapers that 

 30,000 quails, valued at over ,1,500, were burnt to death 

 in the aviary of a large dealer at Wood Green, London, 

 where they were being fattened for market on hemp-seed, 

 millet, &c. If there were the least likelihood of quails ever 

 becoming exterminated by a world-wide traffic in them, it 

 would not need an international convention of ornitholo- 

 gists to put the machinery of the law in operation. If the 

 British Customs House officers were to receive instructions 

 to report for prosecution such owners and masters of ocean 

 and Channel steamers as had live quail on board, a 

 system of cold storage would probably be initiated forth- 

 with. Personally I do not see the necessity of enforcing 

 the law as to the keeping of such so-called British game- 

 birds as quails in captivity during the breeding season 

 when they are known to be imported, for not only are they 

 as proverbially numerous as the sands of the desert, but 

 they are in high demand in all countries as an article of 

 food. In "Troilus and Cressida," that "honest fellow 

 enough, and one that likes quails," was no bad judge of 

 flesh ; he must surely have been an epicure. At the 

 Cawood Castle banquet given by Archbishop Neville of 

 York in 1466, a hundred dozen "quayles" were provided; 

 and Earl Percy's house-book for as early as 1512 shows 

 that no feast was ever held at Wressell and Leconfield 



