176 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



QUAIL. * 



QUAILS are less plentiful with us than formerly, 

 since the inclosure of so many of our open lands. 

 They sometimes stay the winter, as in that of 1825-6, 

 when they were shot about Bottisham, at intervals, 

 throughout the whole of that season. The whist- 

 ling call-note of the male, heard occasionally in our 

 corn-fields during June, is very peculiar, and often 

 puzzles persons who are not familiar with it, to 

 know from what it proceeds; it frequently ap- 

 pears to come from some spot close to one's feet; 

 yet it is almost impossible to get sight of the bird 

 that utters it, from its sculking habits and its never 

 taking wing at such times, but only retiring a little 

 from the approach of the observer. This note I think, 

 as far as my observation goes, is mostly heard of an 

 evening; but I have sometimes heard it in given 

 spots in certain fields without intermission from 

 morning to night, the birds neither tiring with their 

 monotonous exercise, nor seemingly wandering from 

 a favourite station. 



BUSTARD.f 



Dec. 26, 1827. A FRIEND assures me that he saw 

 a bustard to-day in the open lands, between the vil- 

 lage of Swaffham-Prior and Newmarket Heath, and 

 that it approached sufficiently near for him to have 



* Coturnix vulgaris, Flem. t Otis tarda, Linn. 



