336 Tetraonidw. 



would seem to corroborate Yarrell's opinion that when the 

 autumnal migration in October takes place some remain behind 

 and winter here. Colonel Waddington says he shoots a few 

 brace every season at Figheldean. Nests with twelve and 

 thirteen eggs have been taken near Marlborough in June, 1871, 

 and in 1883 ; and Mr. Gwatkin records two nests of thirteen 

 eggs each sent him from Tilshead in 1886. Thus it is still to be 

 found throughout the county, and in all probability it might be 

 found in some part of Wiltshire every year, did not its unobtru- 

 sive and even skulking habits hinder its recognition. That 

 Quails are in marvellous abundance in their favourite haunts, 

 and that during their periodical migrations their flights are 

 prodigious, is not only recorded in old time in the books of 

 Exodus and Numbers,* but Colonel Montagu informs us that 

 one hundred thousand have been taken in one day on the west 

 coast of the kingdom of Naples ; and Mr. Wright speaks of their 

 numbers found at Malta when alighting to rest on that island 

 during the periods of migration as something almost incon- 

 ceivable. But Mr. Adams says their abundance or scarcity there 

 depends entirely on the prevalence or otherwise of favourable 

 winds, for if wafted on by suitable breezes they will pass over 

 the island in vast flocks without stopping to rest. Mr. Cordeaux 

 adds that the Maltese entertain the strange belief that the Quail 

 on migration keeps one wing motionless and raised like a sail, 

 and thus crosses the sea like a ship on her voyage.-f- That the 

 long flight, however, does sometimes completely exhaust the 

 little migrant I once had personal proof, for early one morning a 

 Quail arrived in the garden of the ' Villa des Pins/ at Mentone, 

 but a short distance from the shores of the Mediterranean (which 

 I occupied in the spring of 1878), so tired and exhausted as to 

 allow itself to be taken by hand, though after a time it recovered, 

 when we let it go, and it flew merrily away. That, moreover, 

 this handsome little bird is a cosmopolite, and inhabits the 

 three continents of the Old World, I can vouch, having met with 



Exodus xvi. 13 ; Numbers xi. 31, 32 ; Psalm Ixxviii. 27, 28. 

 t ' Birds of the Humber,' p. 124. 



