WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION. 
51 
tlie Quail, which consists of a shrill piping note, like, as 
Bechstein tells us, verru-verrUj followed by peovoiree several 
times repeated. There is a passage in Beaumont and 
Fletcher's * Humorous Lieutenant,' which has reference to 
the piping of this bird as a love-call : 
Celia. — Master, my royal sir^ do you hear who calls you? Love, 
my Demetrius! 
Leontius. — These are pretty quail pipes ; the cock will crow anon. 
The common Quail is a pretty little bird, not much 
larger than the lark ; in shape, it is much like the par- 
tridge, which it also resembles in the tints of its plumage 
and thickness of its legs ; it lies very close, and may be 
easily passed over by the most observant sportsmen. 
When it rises, it does so with a suddenness quite startling 
to the nerves of a tyro in the use of the gun, and, 
instead of soaring, sweeps along in a straight line with 
great velocity. Except at the period of migration, a flock 
of Quails, which is called ^ a bevy,' generally consists of 
two broods, varying from ten to twenty, or more, in 
number. Those which leave the country do so in Sep- 
tember, or early in the following month ; they generally 
set out on a moonlight night, and rest, except when jour- 
neying across a wide expanse of water, during the day. 
On the coasts, where they alight in an exhausted state, 
they are taken without difficulty by thousands. Tem- 
minck tells us that, on the coast of Naples, 100,000 has 
been estimated as the produce of a single day, and that 
within a comparatively limited space. At this period, the 
islands and shores of the Mediterranean absolutely swarm 
Avith them, and their wholesale destruction is effected not 
only by guns and nets, but sticks, and any missile that 
comes readiest to hand. We read in Waterton^s Essays^ 
third series, that, when visiting Italy, he has known 1,700 
Quails to be brought to Eome for sale in the course of one 
morning. Such great quantities were captured in the 
Isle of Capri, near Naples, at the commencement of 
autumn, as, in former times, to afford the bishop the chief 
part of his revenue, and he was called, in consequence, the 
Bishop of Quails. According to Pliny, in his time they 
