270 BRITISH BIRDS 



ground. Two broods are reared in the season. The quail prefers 

 open, rough grass country to cultivated land. Its food consists of 

 seeds, grain, and insects. 



The quail is hi appearance a very small partridge, being little 

 more than half the size of that bird. It is singular that hi the very 

 limited number of gallinaceous birds that exist wild in this country 

 there should be included the capercaillie, the largest of the order, 

 with, perhaps, the exception of one American species, and the diminu- 

 tive quail a giant and a pigmy. 



Historically, the small species is the more important of the two. 

 He is a Bible bird, and was as familiar as the eagle and the crane to 

 the civilised nations of antiquity in Asia and Africa, where letters 

 and arts had their origin, when the great wood-grouse was known 

 only to the barbarians of Europe. 



When we consider how bound to earth (like our unfortunate selves) 

 the gallinaceous birds are, seldom using their wings, unless to escape 

 from some sudden, pressing danger into the nearest cover, it strikes 

 us as very wonderful that the plump little quail should be as great 

 a migrant as the most aerial kinds the swallows and the warblers. 

 When with us hi the summer he is a dweller on the ground, an 

 earth-lover, like his stay-at-home relation, the partridge ; yet in his 

 wide wanderings he crosses seas, vast deserts, and the loftiest 

 mountain chains ; and by means of this migratory instinct he has 

 diffused himself over the three great continents of Europe, Asia, 

 and Africa. 



Ptarmigan. 



Lagopus mutus. 



Winter : pure white ; a black line from the angle of the beak 

 through the eye ; outer tail-feathers black ; above the eye a scarlet 

 fringed membrane ; beak black ; tarsi and toes thickly clothed with 

 woolly feathers. Female : without the black line through the eyes. 

 Summer : wings, under tail-coverts, two middle tail-feathers, and 

 legs white; outer tail-feathers black, some of them tipped with 

 white ; all the rest of the plumage ash-brown marked with black 

 lines and dusky spots. Length, fifteen inches. 



In the British Islands the ptarmigan is at present confined to 

 the Highlands of Scotland, the ' region of stones,' and to some of its 

 islands, where, however, it is decreasing hi numbers. 



