438 RASORES. PERDIX. QUAIL. 



but these probably (as suggested by MONTAGU) are indivi- 

 duals of a later brood, who have been unable to accompany 

 the main body at the time of their departure. During their 

 abode in this country? they inhabit the champaign and well- 

 cultivated districts ; but they now visit us in much fewer 

 numbers than they formerly did, and their appearance in the 

 midland and northern counties of England, has of late years 

 been a rare occurrence. They are polygamous ; and on their 

 first arrival, the males are readily discovered by the whistling 

 call-note they utter, and which is repeated thrice successively, 

 after short intermissions. 



Nest, &c. The female makes scarcely any nest, depositing her eggs 

 upon the ground in a very shallow receptacle, scratched for 

 the occasion, and generally in fields of green wheat. They 

 vary in number from six to twelve or fourteen in this country, 

 but are said frequently to amount, on the Continent, to eigh- 

 teen or twenty. Their colour also fluctuates from a leek to 

 a bluish and an oil green, sometimes marked with large black- 

 ish-brown blotches ; at other times with very small specks of 

 that colour. 



Quails are very abundant on the Continent during the 

 summer, but migrate in autumn to the warmer latitudes of 

 Asia and Africa. Portugal is the only exception ; in which 

 country they are met with throughout the year, but more 

 numerously in winter than in summer ; and from which fact 

 it would appear, that this particular situation answers as a 

 winter retreat to some of the birds that are bred in the more 

 northern provinces of Europe. During their periodical flights 

 between Europe and Africa, they visit the islands of the 

 Archipelago, and the shores of Italy and Sicily (upon which 

 they alight for rest) in myriads. The quantity sometimes 

 killed under these circumstances is astonishing, as may be 

 judged from the record of one hundred thousand having 

 been destroyed in one day on the coasts of the kingdom of 

 Naples*. In Sicily their autumnal arrival is anxiously ex- 



* See MONTAGU'S Ornith. Diet, and Suppl. art. Quail. 



