THE QUAIL 



LTHOUGH widely dis- 

 tributed over the face of 

 the world, the common 

 quail (Coturnix com- 

 munis) breeds so spar- 

 ingly in the United 

 Kingdom nowadays that 

 the sportsman who finds 

 a nest of this charming 

 little game-bird on his 

 manor watches and pro- 

 tects it with jealous 

 care ; while the flushing of a bevy of quail in September 

 or October is an incident to be recorded on the pages of 

 the shooting diary in red letters. And yet, at the latter 

 part of the eighteenth century, so plentiful were these 

 birds in our islands that great numbers were netted and 

 hair-springed by fowlers. The following description, 

 taken from the discoloured pages of an old manuscript, 

 of the mode pursued by our forefathers in the capture of 

 these toothsome morsels, may prove not uninteresting : — 



" The quail is a well-known bird of passage, frequenting 

 our cornfields in great numbers and sometimes the meadows . 

 They begin to sing in the month of April, and make their 

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