66 TETRAONID/E. 



information communicated by T. W. Warren, Esq. (Feb. 3, 1844) 

 as having been introduced a few years ago into the county of 

 Galway by Mr. Gildear, but with what success I have not learned. 

 Two of these birds, shot at different times in that county (one in 

 the outskirts of the town of Galway) previous to the date just 

 mentioned, were sent to Dublin to be preserved. A red-legged 

 partridge in fine condition was shot near Clonmel on the 4th of 

 February, 1849 ; the food observed in this bird consisted of thin 

 greenish leaves of plants.* 



THE COMMON QUAIL. 



Coturnix vulgaris, Klein. 

 Perdix coturnix, Lath. 

 Tetrao „ Linn. 



Is distributed pretty generally over the cultivated districts 

 in summer ; numbers also remain during the winter. 



Before treating of this bird as an Irish species, I shall, for the 

 sake of comparison, give some particulars respecting it in Great 

 Britain. 



From Mr. Macgillivray's work f (1840), we learn that the quail was 

 seen by Mr. Hepburn in East Lothian, on the 29th of May, 1839, and its 

 call-note then heard by him for the first time. He has been informed 

 that the species is not rare in the parishes of Dirleton and Athelstane- 

 ford. In the middle of Sept. 1833 he saw several of these birds, which 

 had been shot in the meadows of the Clyde, in the upper ward of 

 Lanarkshire.! &** William Jardine (1842) states, that: — " In Britain 

 they may now be termed only an occasional visitant ; the numbers of 

 those which arrive to breed having considerably decreased, and they 

 are to be met, with certainty, only in some of the warmer southern, or 

 midland counties of England. Thirty years since they were tolerably 

 common and regular in their return ; and even in the south of Scotland 

 a few broods were occasionally to be found. Mr. Macgillivray mentions 

 its occurrence in Morayshire, and his having received a nest and eggs 



* Dr. R. J. Burkitt of Waterford. f Br. Birds, vol. iii. 699. 



