142 THE COMMON OR GREY QUAIL. 



than it could have done in the open cultivated country, where, 

 after harvest, it would have found neither refuge nor sustenance. 



"The Quail has a rapid, steady flight, flushing suddenly and 

 with a tinkling whistle. Its course is near the ground, and as 

 straight as a ruler ; and when once in practice a fair shot 

 will often go on knocking down eight or ten birds, one after 

 the other, without a miss. It becomes, in fact, a mere 

 knack, and should a Partridge or any more heavy flying bird 

 rise in the interim, it is probable the best shot will miss it, the 

 eye and hand having for the time become accustomed to the 

 Quail only. It runs some way before rising, or until stopped 

 by some obstacle, such as the little embankment of a field. 

 This accounts for our occasionally flushing five or six at the 

 end of a patch of stubble, when just about to step out of it, 

 and after giving up hopes of a shot in that inclosure. It runs 

 much also after alighting, so as not to be easily found after 

 being marked down." 



The Quail has several notes. One, chiefly (but not exclusive- 

 ly) heard in the spring, is the loud whistled dactylic call of 

 the male, so well known in Europe that it has led to the birds 

 being called " dactylisonans" by some ornithologists. It cannot 

 be represented in words, but it is one long note rapidly followed 

 by two short ones. Then there is the low, whistled chirping 

 also, somewhat dactylic in its character, uttered by both sexes 

 when feeding and at their ease. 



Then there is the rather harsh, sharp alarm note 

 that they commonly emit when suddenly flushed, and again a 

 low purring sound that I have occasionally heard from them in 

 quaileries. 



With us, in India, these latter are great institutions. It is not 

 only that a really well-fed Quail, properly kept and properly 

 cooked in vine leaves, is in its own way unsurpassable ; it is 

 that, in the case of so many of us, large portions of our resi- 

 dence in India are passed in solitary spots where butcher's meat 

 is unattainable in the hot weather, (it being too costly to kill 

 a sheep, the rest of which would go bad before a single joint 

 had been consumed), and where, but for the quailery (and some 

 add a tealery), the everlasting Murghi* would form the chief 

 article of diet. 



A quailery should be dark (or the males will be always fight- 

 ing), light being let in at early morning, at noon, and towards 

 sunset, and the birds fed each time. I always put a tiny trough 

 of water in. The floor should be clean sand, but a fresh sod 

 or two of turf should be put in each day. Below the roof, 

 and distant from it six inches or so, should be stretched a soft 

 loose cloth, so that the birds springing up on any alarm may 



* I don't call these things, chickens; that name conveys an idea of something nice, 

 and is redolent with savoury home reminiscences — they are the Indian representatives 

 of chickens— dry, stringy, tasteless. 



