File:Reptiles and birds - a popular account of their various orders, with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting (1883) (14752385475).jpg

Identifier: reptilesbirds00figu (find matches)
Title: Reptiles and birds : a popular account of their various orders, with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894 Gillmore, Parker
Subjects: Reptiles Birds
Publisher: London : Cassell & Co.

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Pin-tail Sand Grouse. leave Africa, cross the Mediterranean, and spread themselves overEurope. In the month of September they return. ^ The instinctwhich impels them to migrate becomes so powerful in spring thatcaptive Quails become very uneasy, walk up and down their cages,throw themselves against the bars with such force that they fall backstunned, not unfrequently dead. The quarrelsome proclivities of the Quail has long been known.In the East they are regularly pitted against one another, after the man-ner of Game Cocks, and sums of money change hands on the issue. The fecundity of the Quail is extraordinary: if it were otherwise,the species would soon be exterminated, partly from their heavy, awk-ward flight, which renders them an easy prey to the sportsmans gun
Text Appearing After Image:
THE QUAILS. 379 but still more from the wholesale slaughter of them which takes placein certain districts at the time of migration. The bishop of theisland of Capri, situated in the Day of Naples, receives an annualrevenue of 40,000 francs (^1,600 sterling) from the duty he hasimposed upon Quails taken on the island, to be sold in the marketsof Naples. From this he has received the name of the Bishop ofthe Quails. On the shores of the Bosphorus, in the Morea, Crimea, and insome of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, Quails sometimesarrive in such dense masses that, according to a popular saying, it isonly necessary to stoop to pick them up. On arri\ al they fall ex-hausted upon the ground, and tle sky may almost be said to be rainingbirds. The inhabitants, who have been watching for them for manydays, now net them in great numbers, and, having salted them, andpack^d them in barrels, export them to difterent countries. Quails travel principally in the evening and during the night.T

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