28 CATALOGUE OF BIRDS. 



Some of these birds appeared to remain in small 

 flocks all through the summer. 



The specimens in the case were shot on the mud- 

 banks in Shoreham Harbour, in December, 1869. 



QUAIL. 



Case 87. 



This bird is much commoner in the southern counties 

 than is generally supposed. 



Numbers breed in the immediate vicinity of Brighton, 

 their eggs being frequently mown out within a few 

 hundred yards of the town. Still, as but few are ever 

 obtained during the shooting season in this part, I 

 suppose they must be migrants on the south coast, 

 although their time of arrival and departure, or where 

 they go to, has always been a mystery to me. They 

 are occasionally found in most counties in England, 

 though but rarely in Scotland. 



I have often myself fallen in with several scattered 

 birds when shooting in the Fens, near Cambridge, 

 where, with the help of Partridges, Snipe, Duck, 

 Teal, and Hares, a good mixed bag was not unfre- 

 quently made up during the early part of the winter* 

 I now and then heard of as many as seven or eight 

 brace being killed in a day, but that was usually in the 

 beginning of September. I have also good proof that 

 they nested in the neighbourhood, as one of the speci- 

 mens in the case was shot on Bottisha.m Fen, in May, 

 1861 ; the remainder being bagged on Swaffham Fen, 

 near Cambridge, in November, 1862. 



