THE QUAIL. 103 



CHAPTER VIII. 



QUAIL-SHOOTING— THE COMMON QUAIL— THE SCKUB QUAIL— THE 

 P^UNTED QUAIL — THE NUTHATCH QUAIL — THE KING QUAIL — THE 

 SPUR-AVING AND OTHER PLOVERS — A HINT TO BIRDCATCHERS. 



The Qimil is the Australian partridge, and qnail-sliooting 

 is certainly tlie least laborious and pleasantest of all 

 field sports out here. It reminds the sportsman of Sep- 

 tember at home, for it is fair open sport, and a man can 

 have the pleasure of seeing his dogs work in the old 

 style. Moreover, they are generally pretty thickly dis- 

 persed over the whole country, and in a few hours' 

 shooting a tolerable shot can always make a nice little 

 bag. 



"We had sis varieties of quail in our district, — three 

 common and three rare : the common quail, the scrub 

 or partridge quail, the painted quail, all common in their 

 peculiar localities ; and the nuthatch, the king, and the 

 silver quail, all rare and only occasional visitors. 



The common quail comes down about the middle of 

 September, remains to breed, and early in February they 

 all appeared to leave the breeding-grounds, but not the 

 district, for they then packed, and in certain localities 

 large flocks might be seen late in March ; but after 

 March we rarely saw a common quail in our parts. I 

 have observed that the quail leave the heather sooner 



