144 THE COMMON OR GREY QUAIL. 



catch there and then. It was late In the year for Quail, which 

 are generally found in greater abundance in the early part of 

 the cold season, but there were a few fields of millet 

 in the neighbourhood, and there was a chance of getting 

 a few birds. After hunting about for a time, my friend flushed 

 a covey,* and marked where they alighted ; then, making 

 a detour, he proceeded to set his traps, which consisted of a 

 series of rectangular frames, made of laths, about two feet long 

 by one foot broad (a tightly stretched net occupying the interior 

 of each frame) joined at the ends, and folding up like a long 

 map. There were about a dozen of these frames, and the centre 

 one had an aperture in the net large enough to admit a 

 Partridge. 



" With a few bamboo pegs the trapper soon arranged his 

 apparatus in the form of a semicircular wall, and behind the 

 hole in the centre frame he fastened a large net bag, propped 

 up with a few sticks. This done, he ran back to the place from 

 which he had started the birds, and began to work his bullock 

 backwards and forwards, gradually, with each tack, nearing 

 the hiding-place of the covey. Soon the little brown heads 

 were to be seen popping up from the grass, and then, seeing 

 that no immediate danger threatened, they edged off slowly, 

 as the bullock came nearer and nearer. By a little judicious 

 dodging, the trapper managed to get the birds within the sweep 

 of his nets, and then he waited. 



" The stupid little things toddled on and on, till they were 

 stopped by the net, when they took off to the left, which was 

 quite a wrong direction ; so my friend, by a flank movement, 

 headed them again, and turned them back towards the centre 

 of the net. Now and then a silly bird would try and poke his 

 head through the meshes of the net covering the frames, but 

 none thought of hopping over. At last the leader came to 

 the hole in the centre. Ah ! here was a grand opportunity. 

 In he popped, and in popped all the others, and my dusky teacher 

 in the art of snaring rushed forward with a triumphant whoop, 

 and tied up the mouth of the bag with all the struggling Quail 

 inside." 



Their capture with ordinary nets, as practised about Lucknow, 

 is thus described by Mr. Reid : — 



" Having selected the scene of his intended operations, gene- 

 rally a dhal field surrounded by wheat or other corn-fields, the 

 trapper, towards evening, places his call-birds amongst the bushes, 

 and allows them to remain there for the night. Very early 

 next morning a net is placed over the dhal bushes at one end of 

 the field, and, if long enough, is brought round the corners. Then, 

 from the opposite ends, the birds are driven in the direction of the 



* If this word is correctly used, then the particular birds operated on in this 

 instance must, surely, have been Bush Quail. Grey Quail never, I believe, go in 

 coveys in India, — A. O, H, 



