230 QUAIL. 
they seem to be rather rare; one was taken on board a 
pilot-boat about twenty miles at sea, May 10th., 1850; and 
two were shot in September in the same year. 
The Quail occurs near Lilford, Northamptonshire, as the 
Hon. T. L. Powys has informed me, and also near Aldwinkle 
and Titchmarsh; likewise in some parts of Berkshire they are 
common, while in others they are hardly ever seen, as William 
Hewet, Esq. has written me word. In Lincolnshire the Rev. 
R. P. Alington says they appear singly in autumn; in the year 
1851 more were seen than usual; formerly they used to occur 
in bevies in the parish of Stenigot, near Horncastle. One was 
met with in June, 1840, within a hundred yards of the town 
of Melbourne, Derbyshire. 
Captain Turton, of the Third Dragoon Guards, has written 
me word that the Quail is the Partridge of Ireland, and that 
if the country gentlemen would go to the expense of preserving 
them, as they do in England, they might have as many as 
there are Partridges in our best preserves. 
In Scotland it occurs but seldom; in Sutherlandshire it 
appears occasionally near Dunrobin, and also has been met 
with in Aberdeenshire, in the parish of Towie, and in Morayshire. 
In Orkney one was shot in Sanday, by Mr. Strang, in May, 
1833. 
Quails migrate north and south in spring and autumn in 
countless thousands, and vast numbers are taken by bird- 
catchers. As many as one hundred thousand are said to have 
been taken in one day in the kingdom of Naples. Three 
thousand dozen are reported to have been purchased in one 
year by the London dealers alone. They migrate in flocks, 
and the males are said to precede the females. They are 
believed to travel at night. They arrive here the end of 
April, or beginning of May, and depart early again in Sep- 
tember. Not being strong on the wing, yet obliged to cross 
the sea to seek a warmer climate in winter, thousands are 
picked up by the shores on their arrival in an exhausted 
state; many are drowned in the passage, and some are fre- 
quently captured on board of vessels met with ‘in transitu.’ 
Not a few, however, seem to remain throughout the winter. 
—One was obtained in this parish, Nafferton, Yorkshire, in 
December, 1851; one at Halliford, in Middlesex, the 18th. of 
September, 1841. One was shot near Worcester, in January, 
1850; another, a male, the same month at Parson Drove, near 
Wisbeach, in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, on the 16th.; 
