222 
FRANK FORESTER'S FIELD SPORTS. 
tered hedge-row, or along the green and shrubby margin 
some sequestered streamlet; but never in thick woodlands, and 
rarely in open fields. 
Most birds, so soon as they have paired, proceed at once to 
the duties of nidification and the rearing of their young; it 
seems to me, however, that the Quail spend some time in pairs 
before proceeding to this task; for I have frequently seen 
them in pairs so early as the twentieth of March, yet I have 
never found the Hen sitting, or a nest with eggs in it, during 
spring Snipe shooting, though I have often flushed the paired 
birds on the same ground with the long-billed emigrants. 
I have never, indeed, seen a Quail’s nest earlier than the 
middle of May, and have often found them sitting as late as the 
end of July. 
Their nest is inartificial, made of grasses, and situate for the 
most part under the shelter of a stump or tussock in some wild 
meadows, or near the bushy margin of some clover field or 
orchard. The Hen lays from ten to two-and-twenty eggs, and 
is relieved at times, in hatching them, by the male bird ; who 
constantly keeps guard around her, now sitting on the bough of 
the nearest tree, now perched on the top rail of a snake fence, 
making the woods and hills resound with his loud and cheery 
whistle. 
The period of the Quails’ incubation, I do not know correctly ; 
the young birds run the moment they burst from the egg; and 
it is not uncommon to see them tripping about with pieces of 
the shell adhering to their backs. 
The first brood hatched, and fairly on foot, the hen proceeds 
at once to the preparation of a second nest; and committing 
the care of the early younglings to her mate, or rather dividing 
with him the duties of rearing the first, and hatching the second 
bevy, she devotes herself incessantly to her maternal duties. 
So far as I can ascertain, the Quail almost invariably raises a 
second, and sometimes, I believe, even a third brood in a single 
season. Hence, if unmolested, they increase with extraordinary 
rapidity, when the seasons are propitious. It is, however 
