152 QUAIL IN ABUNDANCE, Gash, we found quail very numerous. We shot a good many of them, as well as partridges, which were also very plentiful.

Although I have sometimes come across a quail here and there, and very occasionally two or three together, this was the first and only place in the Soudan where I ever found them plentiful. They arrive in Upper Egypt about the beginning of February ; and I have found them very numerous at that time, not far below the first cataract, and am at a loss to imagine where the thousands, that annually visit Egypt about that time, can come from ; they certainly arrive from the south, and for some hundreds of miles south of the first cataract there is very little country that can afford good feeding-ground for quail. I have seen it stated, that Sennar, on the Blue Nile, is the limit of their southern flight ; if they go there in any numbers, the country must be very different from any I have seen in the Soudan. They, doubtless, take immensely long flights without halting anywhere ; which they are able to do, as proved by the great numbers that every autumn cross the Mediterranean from Europe into Africa. I believe they always make their flight by night. I have never seen them en voyage.