QUAIL SHOOTING 
the subject. To name only a few of such books will perhaps be sufficient, 
as the reader may readily refer to them. At the head of the list may be 
placed the late Capt. Shelley’s handsome volume with coloured plates, 
“ The Birds of Egypt,” which is said to be now rather a scarce book. 
This is not to be wondered at, for the information it conveys is very 
accurate, and the coloured plates very attractive. Then there is Leith 
Adams’s ‘‘ Naturalist in the Nile Valley,” already quoted ; Gurney’s ‘‘ Six 
Months’ Bird Collecting in Egypt,” forming a chapter in his “ Rambles of 
a Naturalist ” ; Charles Whymper’s “ Egyptian Birds,” illustrated by 
himself with charming coloured plates — one of them being a quail on the 
wing, and lastly a pretty little volume for the pocket by Lady William 
Cecil, published in 1904, with tinted plates, entitled, “ Bird Notes from 
the Nile.” From two of these only a few lines may be here quoted, to 
convey some idea of the ‘‘ bags ” of quail that may be made in Egypt. 
Mr Gurney says (op. cit. p. 184) : I never attempted to make any great 
bag, but I have frequently shot ten brace. The biggest bag I heard of 
was twenty brace to one gun, or rather to one sportsman with two guns, 
at Cairo.” Mr Whymper states on the authority of a friend, Mr Burnett 
Stewart (op. cit. p. 106), that on one occasion two guns obtained 252 quail 
in a day at Ayat, fifty miles south of Cairo. 
The best time to shoot quails is in the morning and evening, and ripe 
barley or strips of lentils are the best places in which to look for them. 
CAPE COLONY. — Before quitting the subject of quail shooting in Africa 
it should be noted that the migrations of this little bird are most extensive, 
and that on its southward journey in autumn it actually reaches Cape 
Colony, whence after spending the winter (i.e., the South African summer) 
it returns northward again the following spring. It reaches the Cape 
about the last fortnight in August, and for some time afterwards may be 
said to swarm there, more particularly in the Eastern Province. A friend 
of Mr F. H. Guillemard informed him that he had shot over 100 brace 
in a day near the Kowie River. During a ‘‘ year of plenty ” the late E. L. 
Layard, an old friend of the writer, while resident at Cape Town bagged 
forty brace in a day and lost many more. Mr Walter James Pike, writing 
from Port Elizabeth in December, 1905, remarked, ‘‘ We are glad to get 
fifty brace after a hard day’s walk with two guns.” At the same time he 
forwarded particulars of a remarkable bag of quails made at Port Elizabeth 
by a party of eight guns at the beginning of December, and which totalled 
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