THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
and Arakan, but without any comment on its distribution and numbers. 
A fuller account is given by Oates in “ Birds of Burma ” (1883), as well 
as in his “ Manual of the Game Birds of India ” (1898). In the latter work 
he states (p. 81) : “ The most eastern locality from which I have seen 
the common quail— ‘ grey quail,’ as it is called in India — is Cachar, and 
I now very much doubt if it occurs in Burma, and especially Lower 
Burma, as was believed to be the case when I wrote ‘ The Birds of British 
Burma.’ Major Wardlaw Ramsay’s specimen from Karennee turns out 
to be the Japanese quail, and mistakes may have occurred with regard to 
the other reported instances of its occurrence in Burma. There are many 
sportsmen in Burma now, but I have not heard of anyone meeting with 
the ‘ grey quail ’ in recent years, even in the northernmost parts of Upper 
Burma.” 
Colonel Le Mesurier has described the native methods of catching 
quails in the standing crops of barley in Kandahar, the majority of which 
are taken to market, the stronger cock birds being selected and reserved 
for fighting purposes, quail fighting being a favourite pastime in that 
country.* 
Jerdon describes an ingenious mode of catching quails in Nepal, and 
Macpherson, in his “History of Fowling” (1897), has a chapter on 
“ Quail Catching in the East ” (pp. 382-388), which is very entertaining 
and instructive. 
CEYLON. — Quails are constantly put up by sportsmen in the plains 
and glades, and other dry grass lands in the low country, but they are not 
often fired at for the reason that cartridges are rarely loaded with the 
proper small shot. They generally rise almost at one’s feet and fly only 
a short distance, or run a few yards along the path, and at such range 
a charge of ordinary snipe shot is likely to blow so small a bird to bits. 
If they are known to be fairly plentiful in any old chena or abandoned 
field, it might be worth while to load a few cartridges specially with 
No. 10 shot and a small charge of powder, and to go after them, for they 
are capital eating. They are, however, scarcely worth considering amongst 
the game birds of Ceylon .f It is, perhaps, for this reason that in the 
Ordinance enacted by the Governor of Ceylon “to prevent the wanton 
destruction of birds, beasts and fishes not indigenous to this colony ” 
'* Kandahur in 1879, pp. 180-181, and Game, Shore, and Water Birds of India (1904), pp. 74-95. 
t Clark, Sport in the Low Country of Ceylon (1901), p. 78. 
220 
