than it could have done in the open cultivated country, where,
after harvest, it would have found neither refuge nor sustenance.
" The Quail has a rapid, steady flight, flushing suddenly and
with a tinkling whistle. Its course is near the ground, and as
straight as a ruler; and when once in practice a fair shot
will often go on knocking down eight or ten birds, one after
the other, without a miss. It becomes, in fact, a mere
knack, and should a Partridge or any more heavy flying bird
rise in the interim, it is probable the best shot will miss it, the
eye and hand having for the time become accustomed to the
Quail only. It runs some way before rising, or until stopped
by some obstacle, such as the little embaukment of a field.
This accounts for our occasionally flushing five or six at the
end of a patch of stubble, when just about to step out of it,
and after giving up hopes of a shot in that inclosure. It runs
much also after alighting, so as not to be easily found after
being marked down."
The Quail has several notes. One, chiefly (but not exclusively)
heard in the spring, is the loud whistled dactylic call of
the male, so well known in Europe that it has led to the birds
being called " dactylisonans" by some ornithologists. It cannot
be represented in words, but it is one loug note rapidly followed
by two short ones. Then there is the low, whistled chirping
also, somewhat dactylic in its character, uttered by both sexes
when feeding aud at their ease.
Then there is the rather harsh, sharp alarm note
that they commonly emit when suddenly flushed, and again a
low purring sound that I have occasionally heard from them in
quaileries.
With us, in India, these latter are great institutions. It is not
only that a really well-fed Quail, properly kept and properly
cooked in vine leaves, is in its own way unsurpassable ; it is
that, in the case of so many of us, large portions of our residence
in India are passed in solitary spots where butcher's meat
is unattainable in the hot weather, (it being too costly to kill
a sheep, the rest of which would go bad before a single joint
had been consumed), and where, but for the quailery (and some
add a tealery), the everlasting Murghi* would form the chief
article of diet.
A quailery should be dark (or the males will be always fighting),
light being let in at early morning, at noon, and towards
sunset, and the birds fed each time. I always put a tiny trough
of water in. The floor should be clean sand, but a fresh sod
or two of turf should be put in each day. Below the roof,
and distant from it six inches or so, should be stretched a soft
loose cloth, so that the birds springing up on any alarm may
* I don't call these things, chickens; that name conveys an idea of something nice,
and is redolent with savoury home reminiscences—they are the Indian representatives
of chickens—dry, stringy, tasteless.
not hurt themselves. A quailery should be double, with a door
to open between the compartments; each morning light is let
into the empty half, and the door between the two chambers
opened. The birds all scuttle into the lighted one. The door is
closed, and the now empty chamber washed or brushed out
clean for next day's use. The grain of the giant and bullrush
millets (fowar, Bajera) is the most suitable food, but this
should be varied, a little lucerne, a few handsfull of white ants
and their larva, being thrown in now and then. From the sods,
also, the birds feed.
The place should be clean, as cool* as possible, and well
ventilated. Precautions must be taken against rats by having
the sides lined with masonry, and against snakes by spreading
broken earthen pots (ghaira?) thickly on the ground for a yard
or so round the place. No snake will cross this.
Quail will do fairly well, and a considerable proportion survive
and keep pretty fat, in almost any sort of hutch, but it is
always worth while to house and treat them properly, as
you can then keep them right through the hot weather and
rains, hardly a bird dying, and you will then know what Quail
can become.
The males are very pugnacious, and amongst Muhammadans
Quail-fighting is a favourite pastime; and in places like Lucknow,
the bird-catchers hardly bring anything but females round
for sale for the table. The females they will sell, even in a city
like Lucknow, for from Rs. 2 to Rs. 2-8 a hundred, while males
will sell for fancy prices, according to certain points which the
amateurs in the sport profess to recognize.
In small stations, I have in old days often bought Quails,
males and females together, for Re. 1 per hundred.
Many are captured in spring-side cages, such as have been
already described (p. 125) ; many are caught with ordinary
nets ; but the most deadly method of capture, and one resorted
to nearly all over those portions of India which Quail visit in
numbers, is one well described by Mr. Sterndale"|- in his very
charming work on sport in the Central Provinces.
He says:—
" It was on this trip I came across two queer specimens of
humanity—a Quail-catcher and a snarer of Kingfishers.
" The former I met on a wild upland, whither I had gone
in search of a blue bull. He was a little shrivelled-up man
in scanty attire, with a bullock as dessicated in appearance as
himself, a large flat basket to hold his birds, and a trap. I
entered into conversation with him, and asked him if he could
show me how he caught the birds, promising to buy all he could
* I always found it best to have all but the roof and about one foot of the sides
underground.
+ Mr. Laird has sent me a precisely similar account from Relgaum, and I have
myself seen this mode of capture practised in many parts of Upper India.