66 
TETRAONID^. 
information communicated by T. W. Warren, Esq. (Eeb. 3, 1844) 
as having been introduced a few years ago into the county of 
Galway by Mr. Gildear, but with what success I have not learned. 
Two of these birds, shot at different times in that county (one in 
the outskirts of the town of Galway) previous to the date just 
mentioned, were sent to Dublin to be preserved. A red-legged 
partridge in fine condition was shot near Clonmel on the 4th of 
February, 1849 ; the food observed in this bird consisted of thin 
greenish leaves of plants.'^ 
THE COMMON QUAIL. 
Coturnix vulgaris, Klein. 
Perclix coturnix, Lath. 
Tetrao „ Linn. 
Is distributed pretty generally over the cultivated districts 
in summer ; numbers also remain during the winter. 
Before treating of tliis bird as an Irish species, I shall, for the 
sake of comparison, give some particulars respecting it in Great 
Britain. 
From Mr. Macgillivray’s work f (1840), we learn that the quail was 
seen by Mr. Hepburn in East Lothian, on the 29th of May, 1839, and its 
call-note then heard by him for the first time. He has been informed 
that the species is not rare in the parishes of Hirleton and Athelstane- 
ford. In the middle of Sept. 1833 he saw several of these birds, which 
had been shot in the meadows of the Clyde, in the upper ward of 
Lanarkshire.! Sir William Jardine (1842) states, that: — In Britain 
they may now be termed only an occasional visitant ; the numbers of 
those which arrive to breed having considerably decreased, and they 
are to be met, with certainty, only in some of the warmer southern, or 
midland counties of England. Thirty years since they were tolerably 
common and regular in their return ; and even in the south of Scotland 
a few broods were occasionally to be found. Mr. Macgillivray mentions 
its occurrence in Morayshire, and his having received a nest and eggs 
Dr. R. J. Burkitt of Waterford. 
t Br. Birds, vol. iii. 699. 
