Until vuthin tin- last fifteen or twenty years, Quails were abundant during summer in the immediate
vicinity of Brighton *. Numbers bred within a few hundred yards of the town, and their nests were frequent ly
mown out when the seeds and clover were cut. Any line still evening in May and June the well-known
"whit-whit" of the male might he beard on various parts of the Downs, the mee-hill being an especially
favoured spot. In the spring of 187S I also rceogni/.ed the note on the chalky hill-sides, a few miles inland
up the valley- of the Adur, between Shoreham and Heeding. As few, if any. were obtained darfafj the shootingsi'ason,
it must be supposed that the birds were merely migrants to the south coast; the times of their
arrival and departure, whence they came and whither they went, wen', however, unknown. The cause of
their gradual Tailing olf in numbers and ultimate disappearance t also remains a mystery, the nature of the
surrounding country bni iug undergone little or no alteration.
In the east of Sussex a few brace were killed early in September l^oil by my father's keeper on a stubble
adjoining the I'evenscy marshes; the birds, even at that date, were extremely scarce in the district.
The Quail feeds on a variety of small seeds, and doubtless also on diminutive insects, together with their
eggs and Inrvm. The improvements lately carried out with regard to the land may account for the decrease of
the birds in the neighbourhood of the fens; no changes have, however, taken place in Sussex that could p.issihly
bave affected the Supplies of food needed to meet the humble requirements of this retiring species.
• I am well aware ihat my Batemeuta, Thick are the result of prnonal obaenalion, do not agree »ilh thw* o( 1. E. Knm, who, in the third
edition u(' Ornith.J.puil II iinlJm in Sus-n,' jiutilished in ]?,,.">. r< markl—" Too Quail u onlj- in autumnal migTaliiry vinitnr to fcmaei."