QUAIL. 
395 
paler ; wing coverts pale mfoiis-brown, streaked like the back, but 
more minutely ; quills dusky, the outer webs more or less mottled with 
yellowish wdiite ; tail dusky, tipped with white, and consists of twelve 
short feathers hid by the coverts. 
Ths female differs in having no black chin or throat, but only a dusky 
mark from the ears passing downwards ; the breast is also spotted with 
dusky, and the coverts of the wings crossed with yellowish white bars ; 
in other respects the sexes are alike. The legs of both are of a light 
yellowish brown. 
The Quail is found in all parts of the old world, but not in America. 
It is a bold bird, and is frequently used in China for fighting, as we do 
our game cocks. In the flight season, when these birds migrate to and 
from the north, they are found in prodigious quantities in all the islands 
of the Archipelago, which contains no less than forty-five principal ones. 
It is said that a hundred thousand have been taken in one day on the 
west coast of the kingdom. The nest is formed with very little care, and 
the eggs are deposited on the ground, in a hole scratched for the occa- 
sion. Dr. Latham remarks that he has known two instances where 
twenty eggs have been found in the nest of a Quail. This proli- 
ficacy is the occasion of the immense flocks that are annually noticed 
on their passage, spring and autumn, in various parts of the south of 
Europe, especially in the Crimea, and borders of the Black Sea. In 
the island of Stefano, they arrive in great flights in the month of May, 
from the coast of Africa. In this country some few are said to re- 
main the whole year in the southern counties, and in the vicinity of 
the sea, probably individuals of later brood, who have been unable to 
accompany the main body in the autumnal migration. 
If full credit is to be given to Baron de Tott, these birds migrate by 
night ; a circumstance apparently extremely unnatural, because none 
of those birds, whose natural habits oblige them to feed by day, and 
roost, or repose by night, can see distinctly after the dusk of the even- 
ing, and are so foolishly blind, and so extremely fearful of flying, that 
nothing but alarm can force them to take wing. It is also asserted, 
that these birds, during the fine weather, are dispersed over the Crimea, 
but assemble at the approach of autumn, to cross the Black Sea, over 
to the southern coast, whence they pursue their course into warmer 
regions : the order of this migration is said to be invariable. Towards 
the end of August, the Quails, in a body, choose one of those serene 
days, when the wind, blowing from the north at sun-set, promises them 
a fine night ; they then repair to the strand, take their departure at six 
or seven in the evening, and have finished a journey of fifty leagues by 
