ANDA1TJSIAN HEMIPODE. 423 



pode in this country is thus recorded in the fourteenth 

 volume of the Annals of Natural History, in a letter 

 to the editors : 



" Gentlemen, I have recently received a bird which 

 appears to me to be new to this country ; it is a Quail, 

 having no back toe, and is not mentioned, I believe, in any 

 work on British Ornithology to which I have had access ; 

 but in Dr. Latham's General History it is described as the 

 Perdix Gibraltarica, with which my specimen appears to 

 agree. The bird was shot by the gamekeeper on the Corn- 

 well estate in this county, about three miles from hence, 

 and has been kindly presented to me. It was found in a 

 field of barley, of which kind of grain, by the by, hun- 

 dreds of acres are still standing, with no prospect of being 

 harvested in a proper state. Before I proceeded to pre- 

 serve the bird, I took the measure of its various parts, the 

 colour of its eyes, bill, and feet, its weight, &c., after 

 which I found its description in the work before alluded 

 to. It was shot on the 29th of October last, since which 

 time another has been killed near the same spot by the 

 same person, but its head was shot off, and otherwise so 

 mutilated as to be unfit for preservation : this might pro- 

 bably complete the pair, mine being a male bird. It had 

 in its gizzard two or three husks of barley, several small 

 seeds similar to charlock, some particles of gravel, and was 

 very fat. It was considerably injured by the shot, but I 

 have set it up in the best manner I could, and consider it 

 a valuable addition to my small collection of British Birds. 

 Should this prove to be the only known instance of the 

 capture of the bird in Britain, I shall feel glad in having 

 saved it from oblivion. I am, Gentlemen, your obedient 

 servant, THOS. GOATLEY. 



"Chipping Norton, Oxon, Nov. 11, 1844." 



