188 On a Collection of Birds from the Mediterranean. 



round. Quail frequently came on board ship and allowed 

 themselves to be picked up, or struck the rigging in tlieir 

 flight when coming in ; it may be for the same reason that 

 driven Partridges often strike telegraph-wires, or perhaps 

 these are unusuailj' exhausted birds. 



In Crete a male (with a female) with large testes was shot 

 on 3rd March, evidently a wintering pair. On 7th April a 

 Quail was calling in young corn. A few pairs evidently 

 breed, but the species was not plentiful at any period. 



In Malta the autumn passage commenced about 5th Sep- 

 tember. A few Quail breed in the Maltese islands. 



Caccabis chukar. 



The Chukar Partridge was met with in the Grecian Archi- 

 pelago and Asia Minor. 



Crete. — Comparatively few were seen, and no specimens 

 were obtained, but the cage-birds, sure to have been locally 

 procured, were '' Chukar." 



Marmarice. — The species was fairly plentiful. 



Lemnos and Mitylene. — The Chukar was abundant and gave 

 capital sport (20th August-8th September). The weather is 

 of course hot at this season, but otherwise very pleasant, and 

 the more a sportsman walks and knows the birds' habits, the 

 bigger will be his bag. For about an hour and a half at 

 sunrise and sunset, the birds are generally to be found feeding 

 in the stubbles and thistle-grown lauds on the limestone- 

 soils. In the morning w hen they leave the feeding grounds, 

 which mostly lie on the slopes and towards the tops of the 

 undulating hills, they go down, flying or running, into the 

 gullies, where they lie hidden until evening feeding-time 

 among the thick boulders and scrub. They seem to prefer 

 to roost among collections of boulders and rocks at or near 

 the crest of the scrub-clad hills, repairing thither when 

 almost dark. 



If they see anyone coming in time the birds nearly always 

 run away, and it seems almost the invariable rule that when 

 disturbed they run up hill, and when flushed fly doivn, so that 

 the sportsman should alw ays work right up the hillside to its 



