PAETE1DOES AND PHEASANTS. 171 



Beaumont and Fletcher, our earliest dramatists, allude 

 to the " calling " on the familiar bird flute. With them 

 the quail is represented as entering the nets of the fowler 

 in response to the imitated cry of the female. 



Several other striking modes of capturing these birds 

 are practised in the East. One very simple plan is for the 

 hunters to select a spot on which the quail are assembled 

 and to ride or walk round them in a large circle, or rather 

 in a constantly diminishing spiral. The birds are by this 

 process driven closer and closer together, until at last they 

 are packed in such masses that a net can be thrown over 

 them and a great number captured in it. 



Arab boys catch the quail in various traps and springes, 

 the most ingenious of which is a kind of basket, the lid of 

 which overbalances itself by the weight of the bird, much 

 in the same way as that used in Russia for taking black- 

 game. 



To come westward again, and turning to the pages of 

 that most popular of writers, the Rev. J. G. Wood, we read 

 that in Northern Africa these birds are captured in a curious 

 manner. As soon as notice is given that a flight of quails 

 has settled, all the men of the village turn out with their 

 great burnouses or cloaks. Making choice of some spot as 

 a centre where a quantity of brashwood grows or is laid 

 down, the men surround it on all sides, and move slowly 

 towards it, spreading their cloaks on their outstretched 

 hands, and flapping them like the wings of huge birds ; 

 indeed, when a man is seen from a distance performing 

 this act he looks like a huge bat. As the men converge on 

 the brushwood, the quails run to it for shelter, and creep 

 under the treacherous shade. Still holding their cloaks on 

 their outspread hands, the hunters, when within a few yards, 

 rush upon the brushwood, flinging burnouses over it, and 

 so enclosing the birds in a trap from which they cannot 

 escape. Much care is necessary that the birds should not 

 be driven in too quickly. 



