3H



On the Painted Quails.



grassed aviary is necessary, although I have known a hen to sit

and hatch off a brood in a perfectly open, uncovered nest. The

grassed run need not be more than say eight feet square. The

nest usually consists of a slight hollow under a tuft of coarse

grass, slightly lined with hay. It is generally most cleverly

hidden, and approached through a tunnel in the grass. The

birds usually commence to breed in May. The clutch consists

of from five to seven eggs, generally five or six in the first nest,

and seven in the others. There are three nests in the year as a

rule, although a pair of E. lineata hatched four broods in 1900,

when only recently imported ; the last brood however were found

dead early one morning in October. They had been hatched the

previous evening, but had succumbed to a frosty night.


When hatched, the young Quails are very minute, about

one inch in length, and, as I have noticed on more than one

occasion, they are quite capable of getting through half-inch

mesh wire-netting. They run at once, and resemble tiny

animated balls of fluff.


Though so minute the chicks are easy enough to rear.

Live ants’ cocoons are the very best food they can have, but

failing these almost an3^ good soft food that contains a good

proportion of yolk of egg is readily eaten. Very small gentles

are useful, though I have reared broods on the egg-food entirely.

Seed is eaten when the chicks are still quite small, and I have

found the small “Indian” millet very useful when they first

take to a seed diet. The chicks can fly at ten days old, and,

as was first pointed out by Mr. Meade-Waldo (cf. Vol. V. page 2)

at five weeks old they have assumed the adult plumage.



D. Seth-Smith.



