The Quail 131 
as well as resident in Spain, 1 France, Germany, and is also widely distributed over 
temperate Asia, where it crosses the highest ranges of mountains. It also visits 
Japan,* Formosa, China, Burma and North-eastern India, but seems to avoid South- 
eastern Asia. 
If we study closely the local records of the British Islands, where it occurs 
irregularly in all parts from the West of Ireland to East Yorkshire, from Cornwall to 
the Shetlands, we find that the Quail is subject to sporadic migrations, and that it 
is only residential in certain districts for a term of years. The same story is repeated 
throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland. Quails have come regularly year after year 
to the same fields, and there nested, whilst in many cases they have braved our northern 
winters and remained for several seasons, only to disappear for a while and again 
return. On the whole, however, with the change in the external character of our 
Southern and Midland counties, the Quail is a far less frequent visitor then formerly, 
and every year fewer remain in the places where they have bred. Drainage and high 
cultivation are of course responsible for this to a certain extent. To take only one 
instance of this. Quail were resident in considerable numbers in the valley of the 
Ribble in Lancashire until twenty years ago. Now they come fairly regularly as 
summer migrants, but do not stay after October. Every now and again we receive a 
big migration of Quail ; and such occurred in 1870, when the birds were abundant from 
East Anglia to Pembroke and Cornwall; in 1885, when large numbers came to the 
whole of the Midlands and as far north as Lancashire; and again in 1893. After each 
of these " bumper " seasons numbers of Quail stayed on and were shot in the following 
winter. Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Lincolnshire, West Yorkshire, and 
Lancashire and Shropshire, have always been favourite resorts of the Quail. I can 
remember when I was a boy they were common and resident at Condover near 
Shrewsbury, and twenty years ago they were equally numerous on the Earl of Dart- 
mouth's estate near Wolverhampton. Throughout Berkshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and 
Hants they are local and scarce. 
Northwards the Quail becomes less numerous, and may be regarded as a some- 
what rare visitor to Scotland. In the southern counties of Scotland it is irregular ; but 
I have reason to believe that it breeds in Perthshire every year as well as in Wigtown 
and Ayrshire. In the West of Scotland it is a very rare species, except in Kintyre, 
where it has often been killed in the autumn. In the north-east it has bred on several 
occasions in the low grounds of Sutherlandshire, especially about Dunrobin, and has 
occurred and nested near Wick. In north-west Ross-shire it is very rare, but has 
occurred a few times. Numbers of Quails have bred in Aberdeenshire at different 
times, and a few in Kincardineshire, where it may be claimed as an irregular visitor. 
In North Uist it is described as "very rare"; 3 but it has bred at Newton' and at 
1 Mr. Ogilvie Grant states (Game Birds, vol. i. p. 182) that " a curious variety or semi-melanistic form of C. coturnix occurs 
in Spain in the marshy neighbourhood of Valencia. A male in the British Museum has the general colour of the plumage 
black, and the female has the under parts suffused with sooty brown." 
2 Both in Japan and China occurs a local form known as C.japonica, with which the migratory Quail interbreeds. There 
is also another local form with a chestnut throat in South Africa (C. capensis), which is more or less resident and breeds with 
the visiting species. 
3 A Fauna of the Outer Hebrides (p. 117). One was shot in Lewis in 1909, and reported in the Field. 
4 See Ibis, 1871, p. 112.' 
