THE COMMON OR GREY QUAIL. 143 



not hurt themselves. A quailery should be double, with a door 

 to open between the compartments ; each morning light is let 

 into the empty half, and the door between the two chambers 

 opened. The birds all scuttle into the lighted one. The door is 

 closed, and the now empty chamber washed or brushed out 

 clean for next day's use. The grain of the giant and bullrush 

 millets (Jowar, Bajera) is the most suitable food, but this 

 should be varied, a little lucerne, a few handsfull of white ants 

 and their larva, being thrown in now and then. From the sods, 

 also, the birds feed. 



The place should be clean, as cool* as possible, and well 

 ventilated. Precautions must be taken against rats by having 

 the sides lined with masonry, and against snakes by spreading 

 broken earthen pots (gharras) thickly on the ground for a yard 

 or so round the place. No snake will cross this. 



Quail will do fairly well, and a considerable proportion sur- 

 vive and keep pretty fat, in almost any sort of hutch, but it is 

 always worth while to house and treat them properly, as 

 you can then keep them right through the hot weather and 

 rains, hardly a bird dying, and you will then know what Quail 

 can become. 



The males are very pugnacious, and amongst Muhammadans 

 Quail-fighting is a favourite pastime ; and in places like Luck- 

 now, the bird-catchers hardly bring anything but females round 

 for sale for the table. The females they will sell, even in a city 

 like Lucknow, for from Rs. 2 to Rs. 2-8 a hundred, while males 

 will sell for fancy prices, according to certain points which the 

 amateurs in the sport profess to recognize. 



In small stations, I have in old days often bought Quails, 

 males and females together, for Re. 1 per hundred. 



Many are captured in spring-side cages, such as have been 

 already described (p. 125) ; many are caught with ordinary 

 nets ; but the most deadly method of capture, and one resorted 

 to nearly all over those portions of India which Quail visit in 

 numbers, is one well described by Mr. Sterndalef in his very 

 charming work on sport in the Central Provinces. 



He says : — 



" It was on this trip I came across two queer specimens of 

 humanity — a Quail-catcher and a snarer of Kingfishers. 



" The former I met on a wild upland, whither I had gone 

 in search of a blue bull. He was a little shrivelled-up man 

 in scanty attire, with a bullock as dessicated in appearance as 

 himself, a large flat basket to hold his birds, and a trap. I 

 entered into conversation with him, and asked him if he could 

 show me how he caught the birds, promising to buy all he could 



* I always found it best to have all but the roof and about one foot of the sides 

 underground. 



+ Mr. Laird has sent me a precisely similar account from Belgaum, and I have 

 myself seen this mode of capture practised in many parts of Upper India. 



