756 QUAIL 



transmarine voyages frequently drop exhausted into the sea or on 

 any vessel that may be in their way. In old days they were taken 

 in England in a net, attracted thereto by means of a Quail-call, a 

 simple instrument, 1 the use of which is now wholly neglected, on 

 which their notes are easily imitated. 



Five or six other species of the restricted genus Coturnix are 

 now recognized; but the subject of the preceding remarks is 

 generally admitted to be that intended by the author of the book 

 of Exodus (xvi. 13) as having supplied food to the Israelites in 

 the wilderness, though a few writers have thought that bird to 

 have been a SAND-GROUSE. In South Africa and India allied 

 species, C. dekgorguii and C. coromandelica, the latter known as 

 the Eain-Quail, respectively occur, as well as the commoner one, 

 which in Australia and Tasmania is wholly replaced by C. pedoralis, 

 the Stubble-Quail of the colonists. In New Zealand another 

 species, C. novEe-zealandise, was formerly very abundant in some 

 districts, but is considered to have been nearly if not quite 

 extirpated within the last thirty years by bush-fires. Some fifteen 

 or perhaps more species of Quails, inhabiting the Indian and 

 Australian Regions, have been separated, perhaps unnecessarily, 

 to form the genera Syncecus, Perdicula, Excalphatoria and so forth ; 

 but they call for no particular remark. 



America has some forty species of birds which are commonly 

 deemed Quails, though by some authors placed in a distinct Family 

 or subfamily Odontophorinaz. 2 The best known is the Virginian 

 Quail, or COLIN, as it is frequently called that being, according 

 to Hernandez, its old Mexican name. It is the Ortyx virginianus 

 of modern ornithology, and has a wide distribution in North 

 America, in some parts of which it is known as the " Partridge," as 

 well as by the nickname of " Bob- White," 3 aptly bestowed upon 

 it from the call-note of the cock. Many attempts have been made 

 to introduce this bird to England (as indeed similar trials have 

 been made in the United States with Quails from Europe) ; but, 

 though it has been turned out by hundreds, and has been frequently 

 known to breed after liberation, its numbers rapidly diminish 

 until it wholly disappears. The beautiful tufted Quail of Cali- 

 fornia, Lophortyx californicus, has also been tried in Europe without 

 success ; but is well established in New Zealand and the Sandwich 

 Islands. All these American Quails or Colins seem to have the habit 

 of perching on trees, which none of the Old- World forms possess. 



Interesting from many points of view as is the group of Birds 



1 One is figured in Rowley's Ornithological Miscellany (ii. p. 363). 



2 They form the subject of a monograph in folio by Gould, published 

 between 1844 and 1850. 



3 I learn from a kindly critic (Auk, 1893, p. 358) that this name has 

 lately been adopted as generic. 



