The Quail 133 
This avoidance of our islands cannot, however, be wholly explained by any additional 
severity in the climate nor in the alteration of the natural features of the country due 
to the reclamation of waste spaces where food and shelter are to be found. As Messrs. 
Ussher and Warren point out, the cause of scarcity is more likely to be due to the 
wholesale netting of Quails in the Mediterranean countries in spring. These birds are 
used for food in immense numbers in Rome, Vienna, Paris, and London, and to supply 
the demand tens of thousands are annually trapped, netted, and shot. One vessel recently 
arrived in Marseilles having on board 40,000 Quails. 
Habits. — The great spring migration of Quail moves up throughout Egypt, Syria, 
and North Africa in March, and reaches Malta, Italy, and the north shores of the 
Mediterranean early in April. They descend on such islands as Malta and Capri in 
vast numbers, for it has been estimated that in one season 1,000,000 Quails have been 
captured in Capri alone, whilst 17,000 have been sold in Rome in a single day. The 
birds at this season are in poor condition, and not to be compared to those shot in the 
autumn when grain and insect food are still abundant. However, they seem to bear 
confinement well, and rapidly fatten up even when packed in darkened crates. These 
cages are very low and covered with strips of felt or canvas, so that the males cannot 
see each other well enough to fight. Troughs of water, millet, and hemp supply all 
their wants. 
Those that escape North scatter and breed in all the Southern European countries, 
whilst a few make their way to the British Isles, and as far north as the Faroes. 
As soon as they arrive at their summer home the males commence to call and to 
fight, for they and all the Quail family are amongst the most pugnacious of birds. 
They will fight much longer and more fiercely than partridges, springing up and 
striking one another, in much the same fashion as the larger birds. The contests often 
last until one or other of the combatants is killed, or both incapacitated by exhaustion. 
In India a favourite pastime amongst the natives is Quail and black partridge fighting, 
and much money is won and lost at the game. In consequence of their fighting habits 
Quails are easily lured to capture or destruction by a clever hunter armed with call or 
tame bird. I have seen the Algerians going Quail shooting in the spring with a tame 
" enticer." In the spring all the natives of Southern Europe look forward to the 
advent of " la petite Caille." 
In the latter part of the eighteenth century Quail were so plentiful in England 
that large numbers were snared and netted by the fowlers, who lured both males and 
females with a call. The following interesting description of the method as practised 
by our own forefathers is taken from an old manuscript quoted by Marshman in 
Country Life (November 9, 1907): — 
"The quail is a well-known bird of passage, frequenting our cornfields in great numbers, 
and sometimes the meadows. They begin to sing in the month of April, and make their nests 
in May, building on the ground. Quails are to be taken by the call during their whole wooing- 
time, which lasts from April to August. The proper time for using the call is at sun-rising, 
at nine o'clock in the morning, at three in the afternoon, and at sunset, for these are the 
natural times of the quail's singing. The notes of the cock and hen quail are very different, 
and the fowler who expects to succeed in the taking of them must be expert in both, for 
when the cock calls the answer is to be made in the hen's note, and when the hen calls the 
