QUAIL SHOOTING 
shooting rights on one’s own property vary in different parts of the country 
and are difficult to enforce. Consequently shooting is limited in Italy, and 
to English sportsmen would not prove very attractive. The cost of a game 
licence in Italy varies in different parts of the kingdom, but on the average 
is equivalent to about 10 f. 
On the Island of Capri, opposite Naples, quail used to be captured in 
great numbers, and furnished the chief revenue of the Neapolitan bishop 
of the diocese. The Bishop having jurisdiction in the Lipari Islands also 
derives an income from a tax on quails imported from those islands. 
SICILY and MALTA. — During the periods of migration in spring and 
autumn there is a fair sprinkling of quail and snipe, but there are always 
too many guns out to make it worth while for any but residents to go 
in pursuit of the birds that temporarily visit these islands. The cost of a 
shooting licence is equivalent to about 7 francs. With regard to the arrival 
and departure of quail in Malta, some very interesting observations by 
Leith Adams will be found in his “ Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley 
and Malta” (pp. 98-100). They are too long to be quoted here but will well 
repay perusal. Several pages also on quail shooting in Sicily and Malta 
will be found in Col Hamilton’s ” Reminiscences of an old Sportsman,” 
Vol. I, pp. 166-170. 
SARDINIA. — ^There are always a few quail to be found after the north- 
ward migration in April and May, and again on the return passage in 
autumn, but sportsmen who visit Sardinia are chiefly those who are in 
quest of larger game, and carry a rifle in preference to a gun. 
TURKEY. — Smart, in his ” Travels in Turkey,” states that in the 
vicinity of Constantinople the sun is sometimes nearly obscured by the 
prodigious flights of quail, which alight on the coasts of the Black Sea 
near the Bosphorus, and are taken in hundreds in nets spread along the 
shore. Leith Adams was informed in Turkey that quail are common in 
vetch-fields in July and also in November, which shows some discrepancy 
in their migrations in the extreme eastern as compared with the central 
and western portions of the Mediterranean basin. But he had noticed that 
fields of vetches were particularly attractive to these birds, and that at 
whatever time of year any vetches were raised the quail would be sure to 
be found there in abundance, even after the majority have pushed onwards 
to distant countries.* 
* Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta, p, 100. 
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