THE COMMON QUAIL. 67 



from Aberdeenshire. Its occurrence farther north has not been re- 

 corded. In these same districts they are now very uncertain ; we have 

 known of broods only twice, and occasionally have shot a straggler 

 apparently on its way to the south."* To use Mr. St. John's words : — 

 " The cpaail is sometimes killed here [Morayshire], but very rarely. I 

 once shot a couple on the Ross-shire side of the Moray firth, but never 

 happened to meet with one on this side, though I have heard of their 

 being killed, and also of their having been seen in the spring time, as 

 if they came occasionally to breed. "f The same author states that the 

 quail appears occasionally near Dunrobin, Sutherlandshire. X A nest of 

 the quail with twelve eggs was found in the summer of 1848, in a field 

 of hay, in the parish of New Deer, Aberdeenshire. There is said to 

 be a similar nest in the same farm every year. || One quail is recorded 

 to have been shot in the Orkney Islands.^]" 



This bird seems rather to have increased latterly in Scotland. In 

 1839, I was informed by a friend, who had shot regularly for upwards 

 of twenty years over different parts of the south of Ayrshire, and par- 

 ticularly in the maritime districts, that he never met with one. Within 

 that period he had heard of only two having occurred. One was seen 

 on the shooting grounds of Duisk Lodge ; the other was shot on the 

 property of Mr. Eotch of Drumlamford, and is preserved as a bird of 

 extraordinary rarity. In the summer of 1846, two or three brace of 

 quails were seen about Ballantrae, and a few killed at other places 

 within fifteen miles of that village. In 1848, I was told by Mr. Wil- 

 liam Smellie Watson, of Edinburgh, that two nests of quails were 

 found in a meadow at Craiglockhart, near that city, in the spring of 

 1847. They were discovered during the mowing of the grass; in 

 one nest were eight and in the other twelve eggs. He was told of a 

 third nest being found at Duddingston. When in the island of Islay, 

 in January 1849, I learned that quails are very scarce there ; the keeper 

 at Ardimersy had seen but three during nine years ; all in the autumn. 

 Another person, who had been keeper at Islay House, and has since had 

 a farm, met with only three of these birds during a much longer 



* Br. Birds, vol. iii. p. 106. 



f Wild Sports of the Highlands, p. 147, ch. 18 (1846). 

 + Tour in Sutherland, vol. i. 135 (1849). 

 || Bev. James Smith in " Zoologist," November 1848. 

 If Hist. Nat. Orcadensis, p. 57 (1848). 

 F 2 



