CHAPTER Till. 



QUAIL SHOOTING. 



THIS little bird is not a regular object of pursuit with 

 our sportsmen, for the best of reasons that it is 

 never found in any numbers in this country. It is a 

 bird of passage, essentially migratory, and, as a na- 

 tive, can scarcely be claimed by any of the British 

 islands, except Ireland. Here, to our experience, 

 it frequently breeds ; not like the woodcock, or any 

 variety, indeed, of migratory birds only when it 

 cannot manage to go elsewhere but apparently from 

 choice, and habits of domestication. We have fre- 

 quently watched bevies of quail, in several of the 

 Irish counties, from their shells till they have found 

 their way to our game-bags and, indeed, to our 

 stomach ; for observe, your quail is the daintiest of 

 eating. When the English shooter lights upon 

 them, it is by chance, among the partridges, in 

 September ; but the Irish amateur of the trigger 

 falls in with them " all alone by themselves," among 



