June, 1890.] THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



IOI 



kill his 20 or 30 couple before breakfast. 



I found this bird usually around scattered bushes and long grass, 

 or waste places in the immediate neighbourhood of cultivation, but I 

 have also flushed it on stubbles and in fields of cotton, castor oil and 

 other crops. It rises singly or in pairs, but where you flush one you 

 will always flush several. They run swiftly, and usually run to the end 

 of whatever cover is available before getting up, and I have never 

 seen a quail on the wing that was not put up by some danger. During 

 the heat of the day they lie very close, and to get a good day's quail 

 shooting one must begin as soon as it is light. 



Captain Baldwin in his work on sport in Bengal and other north- 

 west provinces, says that he believes the birds always come in in the 

 the night. " I have searched a field through one evening," he says, 

 without finding a single bird, and happening to pass through that 

 " same field not twenty-four hours after, have found the crop literally 

 " teeming with birds, so that one w r ould imagine that they arrived and 

 " dropped in a large flock. I have seen a wist of snipe arrive in 

 " broad day light, but I never yet met with anyone who had witnessed 

 " quail arrive in like manner." 



Many Anglo-Indians have quaileries, or houses in which quail are 

 kept and fattened for the table, the quail being in the first instance 

 netted by natives who bring them into the stations for sale. The 

 quail, as is well known, is a very pugnacious bird, and numbers are 

 kept by the natives for fighting. In the quaileries they are prevented 

 from fighting by keeping them in pitch darkness. Captain Baldwin 

 remarks that it is a curious fact that whereas most of the more quarrel- 

 some game birds are armed with formidable spurs, the quail, of all 

 birds about the most eager for the fray, has none. 



I need scarcely remark that the grey quail is excellent eating ; 

 though to my mind it is inferior to the English partridge. 



THE BLACK-BREASTED QUAIL. 



COTURNIX CROMANDELICA, GMELIN. 



I saw two other sorts of quail but I do not know much about their 

 habits. The first was the Black-Breasted or Rain Quail of which I 

 think there were only a few about. I only shot one and that was 

 bagged at Solah. It is supposed to be fair eating but it is quite in- 

 ferior to the grey quail. It is called the Rain-Quail from its appearing 

 in great numbers in the rains. The second was the little Button quail 



