134 THE COMMON OR GREY QUAIL. 



northern and inhospitable regions), except in Siam and the 

 Malay Peninsula, to which, as likewise to Sumatra, Borneo, 

 Java, the Phillippines, Celebes, and other islands, it is not 

 known to extend. A somewhat differently plumaged race, not, 

 I believe, entitled to specific separation, is found in Japan and 

 Northern China. Whether the Common Quail has ever 

 appeared in Cochin China or Tonquin, I do not know ; it 

 probably straggles to the latter and not to the former. 



It is found throughout Europe (except in the extreme north), 

 the islands of the Mediterranean, Africa, so far as we are 

 acquainted with it, in suitable localities from Algiers to the 

 Cape, and in the neighbouring islands, the Canaries, Azores, 

 Cape de Verde, Mauritius and Madagascar. 



In India, as elsewhere, the great bulk of the Quail are migratory, 

 while a few here and there are apparently more or less resident 

 and breed where they have spent the previous portions of the 

 year. 



Into India Quails migrate from the north, from Central 

 Asia across the Himalayas, and from the west, from Persia, 

 Beluchistan, &c. ; besides these in Sind, Kathiawdr and Northern 

 Guzerat, a few make their appearance, occasionally if not regu- 

 larly, having crossed by sea from Arabia or Africa. 



The Central Asian birds cross generally, I believe, during the 

 first-half of September — the first Yarkand Expedition caught 

 a specimen on the 24th of September at the Karatag Lake (just 

 across the Karakorum, elevation 13,500 feet) that had obviously 

 dropped out of one of the migrating flocks. 



The birds that come from the west, both by land and sea, 

 are rather earlier, and arrive generally during the last week or 

 ten days of August. 



In both cases I refer to the earlier waves of immigration, for 

 in some seasons, doubtless owing to the want of food elsewhere, 

 several such waves succeed each other, and in Kurrachee large 

 flights have been known to arrive from seawards in November 

 and December. 



Arrived within our boundaries, while a certain number remain 

 scattered about, some remaining in the lower ranges and valleys 

 of the Himalayas up to an elevation of four or five thousand 

 feet, the great bulk move southwards and eastwards, and arrive 

 about the middle of October in districts like Furreedpore, Dacca 

 Sylhet * and about the end of that month in Poona,f Satara, 

 and Belgaum. 



* Mr. Cripps remarks : — " Common from the 15th October to the close of March 

 They frequent crops of peas, millets, &c, also ' sun' grass fields. In the early 

 mornings, and again about an hour before sunset, they are scattered about the 

 borders of the different crops they frequent, but during the day they are only found, 

 in the patches of \ sun' grass, and occasionally in the centre of the crops. I have 

 seen them in the districts of Dacca, Furreedpore, Mymensingh, and Sylhet, and in 



