PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 45 



of a pale uniform buff, lacking the black anchor. The rest of the under parts are 

 of a similar buff hue, tinged on the flanks with rufous ; the flank feathers further 

 have buff shaft-streaks and marginal black spots. In the juvenile fledgling plumage 

 the upper parts are heavily striated with dull white, and barred with black on a 

 buff ground. The fore-breast and flanks are of a pale buff, with very narrow, 

 hairlike, white shaft-streaks, and a pair of subterminal black spots on each web. 

 The young in down is buff-coloured, tinged with rufous on the crown and lower 

 back, which are relieved, as to the crown, with two black longitudinal stripes, and 

 as to the back with a median and lateral black stripe, [w. p. P.] 



2. Distribution. Formerly this species was much more plentiful as a 

 summer resident than it is at the present time in the British Isles, partly owing 

 to changes in the country and partly to destruction at migration periods. It 

 haunts rough pastures as well as cultivated land, and is now chiefly met with in 

 the southern counties of England and the eastern half of Ireland. At intervals it 

 has appeared in greater numbers than usual, but on the whole the tendency is 

 steadily to diminish. Although it becomes scarcer in the north, it has been re- 

 corded as breeding on the Orkneys, Shetlands, Fair Island, and the Outer Hebrides, 

 and was formerly abundant and widely distributed in Ireland. Outside the British 

 Isles it has bred in the Faeroes, and on the Continent it is found on the low ground 

 in Norway up to Trondhjemsf jord, and in South Sweden regularly, up to lat. 65 

 in Finland, and to the White Sea and lat. 60 in the Urals. From these limits 

 southward it is found throughout the Continent in suitable districts south to the 

 Mediterranean and Black Seas. It also breeds in the islands of the Mediterranean 

 as well as in North Africa, but the form which occurs on the Atlantic isles (Azores, 

 Canaries, Madeira, etc.) is apparently that which inhabits Central and Southern 

 Africa. In Asia it is found in W. Siberia, north to lat. 61 on the Yenisei, and east 

 to Lake Baikal, as well as in South-west Asia (Asia Minor, Persia, Afghanistan, and 

 occasionally even in India), but in Eastern Asia and Japan it is represented by an 

 allied form. The winter range extends in some cases to the Cape, Madagascar, 

 and Mauritius, as well as to the shores of the Indian Ocean, but many birds winter 

 in the Mediterranean region, and exceptionally even in the British Isles. [F. c. R. J.] 



3. Migration. Chiefly a summer visitor in very variable numbers, and 

 with a rather variable and local breeding distribution. Some frequently remain 

 in parts of our area during the winter ; and there may possibly be a slight passage 

 to and from countries farther north. Up till the middle of last century the quail 

 was abundant and partially resident in Ireland, but since then its numbers have 



