CHAP, x.] DESTRUCTION. 377 



comparatively few, but still are greater in many dis- 

 tricts, Cambridgeshire for instance, than is commonly 

 suspected. They are little noticed, by reason of their 

 small size, their colour, which resembles loamy earth, 

 the circumstance of their never perching, their trick of 

 squatting when surprised, and, we suspect, their noc- 

 turnal habits when on the move. They really are not 

 rare birds here, but we have no notion how they swarm 

 at certain seasons on the Continent. " There is no part 

 of Great Britain where we can go regularly out for a 

 day's Quail shooting as in France (where these birds 

 abound in the month of August), or the more southern 

 parts up the Mediterranean, where they sometimes 

 cover the country for miles. The Quails are so far 

 plentiful on the left bank of the Tagus that many of the 

 officers, indifferent shots, while in winter quarters at 

 Vallada, thought nothing of going over, and returning 

 to their dinner with ten or twelve couple, although with 

 every disadvantage in point of guns and ammunition."* 

 Another sportsman of some repute, Colonel Napier, 

 tells us that "Malta is not a field where the sportsman 

 has a very extensive range, either in the quality or 

 quantity of his game, the Quail being the only bird 

 coming, properly speaking, under that denomination, 

 which is to be found in the island, and these only at 

 certain periods in the spring, on their passage from 

 Africa across the Mediterranean, and on their return 

 in autumn. They then make their appearance in great 

 numbers, but dreadful is the slaughter which takes 

 place in their serried ranks, as war is waged on them 

 by every ' Smitch cacciadore ' who can muster anything 



* Colonel Hawker's Instructions, p. 218. 



