The Kurrichane Button Quail.



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THE KURRICHANE BUTTON QUAIL.


Tut nix lepurana.


By Major B. R. Horsbrugh, A.S.C.


This little Hemipode is quite a common summer resident

in the Potchefstroom district, and I have found it all up the

Western Transvaal as far north as Mafeking.


When shooting Cape or Harlequin Quail it is often met

with, but as a rule it is mistaken for a Quail chick and is not

fired at.


It has a great partiality for mealie fields, and here it runs,

like a swift rat through the weeds, but I have rarely found it in

the grassy vleis in which the two species of Coturnix (delegorguei

and capensis ) lie.


O11 the wing it is really quite easily distinguished from a

true Quail: it looks much lighter and swerves very much more ;

it does not fly far, and after one flight it will rather suffer itself

to be caught by a spaniel than get up a second time. On rising

the true Quail gives a sharp cry of “ Kree—kree—kree ” but the

Button Quail is quite silent.


Sclater says of this bird “that it is widely distributed

throughout the whole of S. Africa, except perhaps in the western

half-of Cape Colony, Beyond our limits {i.e. S. of the Zambesi

River) it extends northwards to the Gold Coast and to North-

East Africa and Aden.”


Like so many other S. African birds its time of migration

depends on the abundance of its food and on the severity of the

cold weather.


In February 1907 my brother bought four of these little

Quail from a Dutch boy in Pretoria and sent them to me ; they

turned out to be three hens and one cock, and in my large aviary

they lived a retired existence among some tall grass till the end

of the following September.


About that time I noticed that the cock and one of the

hens were very friendly and never far apart, so I moved them

into an aviary where there was more cover and which was only

inhabited by a pair of Cut-throat Larks or Cape Long-claws

(Man onyx capensis).


On the 3rd of October we noticed the pair of Button Quail



