THE QUAIL. 99 



Britain, it is found in the south of Europe in numbers that 

 are said almost to defy calculation. In the month of April 

 these birds arrive from Africa on the islands of the Grecian 

 Archipelago in " countless thousands/' and Yarrell states 

 " that as many as one hundred thousand have been taken 

 in one day on the west side of the kingdom of Naples.''' 

 In these migratory flights, which are performed during 

 the night, the males arrive first, and it is stated that 

 amongst the large numbers sent to us annually by the 

 French bird-dealers, and in the first lots, there are more 

 males than females. In captivity these birds feed freely, 

 and rather rapidly. They are particularly partial to hemp 

 and millet seeds. 



The geographical range over which the Quail is distri- 

 buted is a wide one, as it is met with in Africa from the 

 Cape of Good Hope to Egypt, India, China, and the 

 countries of Europe as far north as Scandinavia. 



Ornithologists are now agreed that the Quails men- 

 tioned in Scripture, as furnishing the children of Israel 

 with fctod, are identical with the bird here described. 



In the adult male the beak is brownish-grey ; the irides 

 hazel ; top of the head dark brown, with a pale wood- 

 brown streak from the base of the beak on each side over 

 the eye and the ear-coverts, and a narrow streak of the 

 same colour over the crown of the head to the nape of the 

 neck ; the plumage of the back, wings, rump, and tail, 

 brown, with lighter-coloured shafts and streaks of wood- 

 brown ; wing-primaries dusky-brown, mottled with light 

 brown ; chin and throat white, bounded by two half -circu- 

 lar dark-brown bands descending from the ear-coverts, 

 and with a black patch at the bottom in front ; breast, pale 

 chestnut-brown, with the shafts of the feathers straw 



