146 THE COMMON OR GREY QUAIL. 



As ALREADY noticed, a very few of the migratory millions of 

 Quails that visit India remain behind their companions and 

 breed with us. 



Where Quail are very numerous during the breeding season, 

 there they are generally reputed to be polygamous ; but in India, 

 where, except occasionally in the extreme north-west, they breed 

 in small numbers, they are certainly, I think, monogamous. 

 Moreover, I must say that, towards the end of their stay with 

 us, I have always found the migrating birds, when not in too 

 great numbers to prevent this being detected, also invariably in 

 pairs. 



I have records of the occurrence of nests in the Peshawar, La- 

 hore, Sialkot and Hansi districts of the Punjab, in the Dehra 

 Dun, Saharanpur, Shahjahanpur, Fatehgarh and Allahabad 

 districts of the North-Western Provinces, in Purneah of Ben- 

 gal, Jhansi and Hoshangabad of the Central Provinces, and Satara 

 of Bombay. In the extreme North-West they breed in some 

 numbers, elsewhere nests are rare, growing more and more so as 

 you travel south and east. 



The nest appears to be here always placed upon the ground, 

 amongst grass, and especially grass growing amongst low thorny 

 bushes, such as the dwarf jujube. Out of India, in more tem- 

 perate climes, they very commonly lay in wheat fields ; and I 

 have found the nests in Norfolk in clover fields also ; but in India, 

 except in the extreme North-West, all our crops are cut before 

 they begin laying. 



There is, as a rule, very little nest, merely a slight saucer- 

 shaped depression in the soil scratched by the birds, occasionally 

 quite bare, generally thinly, at times pretty thickly, lined with 

 fine stems and blades of grass. 



Ten eggs are the largest number that I know to have been 

 found in India, and from several nests six and seven hard-set 

 eggs have been taken. In Europe they are said to lay up to 

 fourteen eggs. 



They lay from about the middle of March to the end of 

 April, according to season and situation. 



I have only myself found a single nest of the Common Quail 

 in India, and that was in April (29th) in the north of the Pur- 

 neah district. The nest was a shallow saucer-like depression 

 scratched by the bird and lined with a few blades of dry grass. 

 It was placed in a tuft of grass and dwarf Zizyphus on a ridge 

 separating two millet fields. The nest contained nine eggs abso- 

 lutely in the act of hatching off. We caught the female on the 

 nest, examined the eggs, found the points of the bills protruding 

 in two, so put them carefully back, and replaced the mother 

 gently on the nest, where she sat winking at us in a most 

 unbecoming manner, but never attempting to leave the nest. 



Captain Cock some years ago wrote to me that " the 

 Common Quail bred most abundantly about Nowshera in 



