of the cultivation, but keep exclusively to the sand (possibly in spring or summer they may approach nearer to the haunts of man, but I have no evidence), which makes the fact of their being, as it is alleged they are, exceedingly good eating, very remarkable, for one would be disposed to think they would be thin, tough, and tasteless. I have it on good authority, that as a game-bird for the table, they are far to be preferred to our own Partridge, being, though small, very plump and of a fine game flavour. All Partridges seem peculiar in doing well on very little—at home one often wonders during a hard winter at their surviving at all—for they are never fed like the pampered Pheasants, and not only do they survive, but they seem to carry as much flesh when shot in a hard winter as they do in September when grain lies scattered in profusion on every stubble. Although one has praised its seeming happy way of living, no account of this bird would be complete without some notice of its extraordinary pugnacity. This is confined admittedly to the males, but with them it is, as with all so-called game-birds, a ruling passion, of which our game-cocks are of course well-known examples; but it may not be so generally known that in many countries—Greece, amongst others—Partridges are kept for this special purpose of fighting for the delectation of their owners, and though I am not aware of this little sportsman, the Sand Partridge, having been kept for this purpose, I am sure if it was it would not disgrace the traditions of its family, for a more pugnacious little bird than it never walked. The males have a peculiar habit of standing ever and anon quite upright puffing out all their breast feathers, so that they display all the beauty of their rich chestnut and black-barred plumage. The naturalists have discovered that in certain districts the birds all have a white spot over the beak on the forehead, and to this variety is given the name of Cholmondely’s Sand Partridge, whilst the other type, with only one white spot behind the eye on the cheeks, is known as Hey’s Sand Partridge. Here, as in the case of most birds, the description of the plumage is taken from the male bird, the female nearly always being very much more sober coloured. This cannot too often be repeated, as not recognizing this fact often leads to mistake; and again, in the matter of the measurements of the birds, the size given is that of the average bird, for in almost all birds you get larger or smaller individuals, and that veteran naturalist Wallace has just lately drawn attention to the quite extraordinary variations in the different parts of the Common Redwing, showing that even in twenty birds the dimensions varied considerably.
THE QUAIL
Coturnix communis
Arabic, Salwa
Plumage—Upper parts brown marked with grey, rufous, and black, a buff line over eye and on crown of head, a semicircular collar of dark brown on throat; lower parts lighter, streaked with black down centre of feathers, beak brown, legs pale warm brown, eyes hazel. Total length, 7·5 inches.
THE call of the male Quail is one of those strange sounds that have around it much of the halo that the song of the Cuckoo has at home, because it marks a definite date—the passing of winter and the coming of summer. For the ordinary traveller this call, which by some has been rendered as sounding like “What we whee,” is all that he will ever know of the bird’s presence, as it is curiously skulking in habits, and never rises unless suddenly alarmed by one’s walking through the cover in which it hides. Personally I agree with a friend who said the sound was identical with the sort of cheeping call of a young turkey poult, but all descriptions of birds’ songs I hold to be rather vain. Each one for himself