Practical Game-Preserving. 238 



that a serious and well -planned effort has ever been made 

 to achieve this end. Possibly something akin to the Con- 

 tinental system of rearing partridges might be made to 

 overcome all the difficulties attached to dealing with a 

 game-bird of the quail's peculiar nature. It appears 

 impossible to overcome their natural wildness or opposi- 

 tion to domestication. I have had them in confinement 

 myself under varying conditions, both in this country and 

 abroad, but always without in any way being able to say 

 that they were any tamer after a year or so than when first 

 shut up. I have, however, remarked that they show little 

 or no signs of increased restlessness when the migratory 

 time comes round, and the birds will answer one another at 

 mating-time. Possibly, therefore, if confined under such 

 conditions as those above named, there is a remote 

 possibility that they might mate and brood. 



Of course, in dealing with a bird of the character of the 

 quail, what can be said about it as a British game-bird 

 applies largely to what was, or what may be, because, as 

 before mentioned, it occurs on the whole in decreasing 

 numbers every year, occasional seasons, however, witness- 

 ing a fair sprinkling in portions of the Eastern counties. 



If kept for a short time in confinement the closer the 

 better and then turned away, a certain percentage will 

 mate up and brood, and of the resulting progeny some, if 

 not shot, will remain ; but the migratory instinct is very 

 strong, and it would be hard to get rid of to any positive 

 extent. In habits it is somewhat similar to the Common 

 Partridge, choosing either the same localities or those with 

 similar features, avoiding, however, to some extent, such 

 higher lands and wet, marshy parts as the partridge some- 

 times frequents. It is, moreover, a bird which spends its 

 whole life upon the ground, and finds its food, which is 

 similar to that of the partridge, in the same way. It 



