Nestinfj of Quails. 
317 
first suggest itself. The only other suggestion that occurs 
to mo is that some waterproof material would be better than 
brushwood for a covering, because Quails, when newly hatched, 
are the most tender little things imaginable and a very few 
moments exposure to wet or cold will be enough to kill an 
entire brood. 
V. Feed on fresh ant-pup£e (or, in default, small 
gentles) with a soft food consisting of hard-boiled egg, bread- 
crumbs, dried ant-pupse and crissel. They may 1)e reared on 
.soft food and seed alone. Egg, as we all know, is used by 
many persons with complete success (and Mr. Seth Smith is 
evidently one of them, for he tells us that he has never lost 
a single young Quail after getting them safely enclosed in the 
run) but what I should expect to happen, if I used it, would 
be that the parents would scatter it with their powerful feet 
over the whole floor, that it would remain there until stale, 
that the young would then pick it up and that one would lose 
the lot. I have not used egg myself since one memorable 
occasion when I lost fifteen (out of sixteen) young canaries 
in a single day. 
VII. Turn the mother and young out into the aviai^y 
again at the age of fourteen days. 
The above useful advice relates of course to breeding 
operations conducted in the summer, but with the two species, 
of which, I am writing to-day, I had the unusual experience 
of having to attempt rearing the young in mid-winter and in 
late autumn, which is not by any means so simple a matter. 
THE ARGOONDAH QUAIL. 
We will first consider the Argoondah Quail. I gave 
some account of my old pair in Bird Notes (November,'09.) 
under the heading "The Month's Arrivals." This is an Indian 
species, belonging to the genus Pcrdicula — the latter having 
twelve tail feathers, less than half the length of the wing, the 
tarsus of the male provided with a blunt spur and the plumage 
of the sexes being different. The male Argoondah is inches 
in length, has a white breast handsomely barred with black, 
a brick-red throat and flights barred on the inner and outer 
webs with rufous. I find that this characteristic applies only 
to quite adult specimens. This particular male when he came 
