922 Birds. 



returning late one evening in the month of June from a walk with a 

 younger brother, I heard the tongueing of a spaniel in a field of wheat 

 a short distance from the house. The loud call and alarm-note of a 

 partridge was also occasionally heard, and suggested to my mind 

 what proved to be the fact, that the aforesaid spaniel was amusing 

 himself with hunting a young covey. I proposed to my brother to 

 go and call off the dog : the fellow, however, was too intent upon his 

 sport to obey our summons, or heed our threats, and the alternative 

 of trying to rescue the brood, w T hich we could hear crying 'peep peep' 

 around us, was adopted. The young birds could not, I should think, 

 have been hatched many hours : and though it was now so dark that 

 we were guided only by their plaintive cries, we succeeded in captur- 

 ing five, which were deposited in my cap, laid on the ground for the 

 purpose. One old bird was doing its best to draw off the dog, by 

 fluttering just before its nose, as if wounded and unable to escape. 

 But what was my surprise, when, returning to my cap with another 

 chick, 1 laid my hand on the other old bird, which was actually co- 

 vering the chicks previously placed therein. On my touching it, it 

 flew off some few feet, and while I, more than half frightened by the 

 unexpected noise of the bird's rising, remained fixed to the spot, he 

 or she, it was too dark to distinguish which, positively returned to 

 within a few inches of the cap ; but again started on my moving. 

 We carried the chicks home, till we had succeeded in calling off the 

 spaniel, and then replaced them, wrapped up in flannel, in my cap. 

 On visiting the spot early next morning, we found only one little dead 

 chick in the cap ; the rest had no doubt been led away by the parent 

 birds. 



The Quail is not found very frequently ; and those that do occur 

 are, I imagine, usually birds of passage, on their way out of the coun- 

 try. R. Loe has, however, known the quail to breed once at New- 

 church. A few years ago a bevy was fallen in with early in Septem- 

 ber, in the parish of Whitwell. Mr. Simeon writes, under date Dec. 

 30, 1 844, " The quail is rarissima with us. I have never seen it here 

 alive. I remember hearing of a bevy near Ryde many years ago, of 

 which two or three were shot : and one was killed by Mr. Jolliffe, 

 our tenant at Bowcombe about six weeks since. He informed me 

 that the bird had been for some time haunting his turnip-fields, but 

 that it had no companion. 1 ' I also saw one last autumn, which was 

 caught by a dog at Newchurch, about the same time as that men- 

 tioned by Mr. Simeon. Mr. Butler of Yarmouth caught a quail a few 

 years back, on Christmas day. 



