220 A MEDLEY OF SPORT 



shores of the Mediterranean, and during the spring 

 migration as many as 1,000,000 have been captured on 

 the small island of Capri alone; while between 16,000 

 and 17,000 have been sold in Rome in a single day. 

 Many quails remain to breed in the countries bordering 

 the Mediterranean, but the majority pass to more 

 northerly nesting places, and upon several occasions the 

 eggs of this feathered cosmopolitan have been found 

 in our islands as far north as Orkney and the Outer 

 Hebrides. The quail taken during the spring migration 

 are, from an epicurean point of view, not to be compared 

 with those of the autumn, for at the fall of the year, 

 when both grain and insect food are abundant, the birds 

 are just as fat and juicy then as they are lean and dry 

 during the earlier part of the year. 



Season after season tens of thousands of these much- 

 sought-after little game-birds find their way into 

 Leadenhall and other great markets throughout the 

 United Kingdom, and when imported alive they are 

 closely packed in long, narrow and darkened crates (so 

 pugnacious is the quail that to prevent him seeing and 

 punishing his fellow-prisoners the crate is darkened with 

 strips of felt or baize), troughs of millet and water being 

 placed along the whole length of the crate in such a 

 manner that the birds are able to feed at will. In spite 

 of overcrowding, so plucky and hardy are they that the 

 percentage of deaths among them during their long 

 journey by crate, overland and across the sea, is com- 

 paratively small. It is also astonishing how quickly 



