QUAIL SHOOTING 
It appears from an article on “ Sport in Portugal,” by Count d’Arnoso, 
forming a chapter in a larger work,* that a gun licence costs very little 
(7s. to 8s. a year), and in many places is not enforced, so that shooting is 
within reach of all. Such a licence is valid for the whole country, and 
must be taken out in the district in which the applicant resides. In the 
Lezirias do Tejo and Sado, and in the country near Estarreja, great 
numbers of quail {codorniz) are shot at the end of April and during May 
and again in August and September, when a good gun may bag from 
eighty to one hundred birds in a day. In some parts of the country, says 
Count d’Arnoso, quail remain all the winter, principally in the Alemtejo.f 
Col Hawker, in his immortal “ Instructions to Young Sportsmen,” 
incidentally mentions that quail (in his day) were so plentiful on the left 
bank of the Tagus, that many of the officers, indifferent shots, while in 
winter quarters at Vallada, thought nothing of going over and returning 
to dinner with ten or twelve couple, although with every disadvantage in 
point of guns and ammunition. 
AZORES. — In the cultivated lands on all the islands quail are plentiful, 
and may be found even in the gardens. Mr F. D. Godman, in his “ Natural 
History of the Azores ” (p. 32), states that they are not migratory there 
and have two and sometimes three nests in the year. He adds : “ They 
afford excellent sport ; on one occasion a Portuguese gentleman and 
I killed 157 in a few hours.” The Azores, it may be observed, mark the 
westernmost limit of this bird’s geographical distribution. 
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. — Quail arrive in numbers in April, and are 
scattered over the country throughout the summer. The shooting season 
begins in August, and during that month and September good bags may 
be made. An English naturalist and sportsman, Mr Charles Danford, for 
many years resident in Transylvania, informs us that in the meadows 
in the valleys there quail are quite common from April to September. 
His account of the birds of Transylvania, published in “ The Ibis ” for 
1875, is well worth referring to, especially for the remarks on game and 
wildfowl. 
RUSSIA. — There is no shooting to be had in Russia without the written 
permission of the owner of the land, and shooting of every kind, either on 
* Sport in Europe, pp. 241-42. 
fThis also is the case in England as well as in Ireland, where every winter a few quails are reported to have been 
met with by snipe shooters. 
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