G1 
VIll. 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
0UNIT1I0IX)GY. 
Abundance of Quails in Noufobk, in the Yeak 1870. In 
a note on Uiis subject in la.st year’s “ Transaction.s,” I deferred 
expressing any opinion as to tlie cause of such an extraordinary 
number of quails remaining to breed in this county, but their 
scarcity during the present season (1871), very few nests or 
birds having been met with, renders it, I think, pretty certain that 
the marked increase in their numbers in tlie spring of 1870 was 
owing to a very exceptional immigration of this species. These 
birds, from whatever direction they may have reached the shores 
ot Great Britain, located tliemselves most numerously in Pem- 
brokesliire on tlie west, and Xorfolk on the eastern coast. Tlie 
numbei-s met with in that part of ^Yales, however, for exceeded 
anything observed m this county. Taking these two points as 
the head centres of one enormous flight, the records at the time 
in the Zoologist and other Xatural History Journals seem to 
indicate that they were also sparsely scattered in other English 
counties, from Sussex to the Xorth of Y orkshire, and throughout 
various parts of Scotland. II. Stevenson. 
Ortolan Buntings at Y'armouth. — i\Ir. Stevenson has given 
his reasons in the “Birds of Xorfolk,” (vol. i, p. 199,) for 
excluding the ortolan bunting ; but from what has recently come 
to light it would seem that it may yet be entitled to a place in the 
rich avi-fauna of our county. Last year I bought a specimen of 
Ylr. Gunn, (a dull-coloured one compared with the plate in Sharpe 
and Dresser’s “ Birds of Europe,”) which had been netted at 
Yarmouth in Ajiril, 18G0, and kept alive two days by a man named 
