‘Field’ and other publications, with expressions of 
surprise on the part of the writer ; but, in my experience, 
wherever this species breeds, a few always remain 
through the cold weather; I have found this to be the 
case in Ireland, 8.W. Lancashire, the Cambridgeshire 
fens, Northamptonshire, Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, ‘Tunis, 
and Epirus. In Lancashire, where I have seen more 
Quails than in any other part of England, I observed 
that they especially affected oat-stubbles on land that 
had been reclaimed from its original condition of peat- 
bog or “moss” by deep drainage, but as the land 
became dryer and the weeds decreased the Quails 
gradually disappeared, and, as regards the locality to 
which I am specially referring, I have not heard of the 
occurrence of a Quail during the last ten years. So 
much has been written about the abundance of this bird 
on the spring-passage throughout the countries bordered 
by the Mediterranean that it would be quite superfluous 
to go into details on the subject ; I will only, then, state 
that in the Ionian Islands the spring flights of Quails 
are often perfectly marvellous, whilst in some years very 
few take that route of northward migration. The nest 
of this bird is a simple scratching of the ground with a 
few dried bents as lining, and in my experience is 
generally situated in grass, lucerne, or common clover, 
very often in Spain on the grassy borders of a vast wheat- 
field, but seldom actually amongst growing corn of that 
kind. TI have, however, found several nests in patches 
of barley and rye. I never found more than ten 
eges in a nest, but am well aware that larger numbers 
are frequently to be met with. I consider Quail- 
