THE OUAIL. 
(Coturnix vulgaris, L.) 
[ ^p ) NE family in the useful order of gallinaceous 
birds is not only well marked, but also of the 
utmost interest to sportsmen—the Tetraonidcc, as they 
are called—that is, the Partridges and their allies. It 
consists of the Capercailzie, Black Game, Red Grouse, 
and Ptarmigan, best known to wanderers on the 
Scotch hill-sides, of the Pheasant, the Common 
Partridge, and the Red-Legged Partridge, all of 
them familiar to most lovers of the country, and 
of the Ouail. Besides these a few rarities are 
included in most histories of English birds, such 
as the Virginian Partridge and the Andalusian 
Hemipode, a kind of small Quail, but well dis¬ 
tinguished by the absence of a hind toe. Only three 
British examples of this bird have as yet been 
chronicled. In 1863, too, an extraordinary flight of 
Pallas’s Sand Grouse, a Central Asian bird belonging to this order, passed over 
England, seventv-five alone being killed in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.* 
* Harting’s “Handbook of British Birds,” p. 129. 
