Common Quail (Coturnix Dactylisonans).
Quails form a subdivision of the Tetraonida, or grouse family, being distinguished from partridges by their smaller size, liner bill, shorter tail, and the want of a
VIII.— G G G
red naked eyebrow and of spurs on the legs. There are several species, whereof the common, now distinguished by the name of Coturnix dactylisonans, is abundant in all the temperate regions of Europe and Western Asia, migrating to and from Africa in the proper season. Thus it crosses the Mediterranean and Black seas twice a year in vast multitudes; but being by nature a bird of heavy flight, the passage is partially conducted by way of intermediate islands or through Spain, and in the East, in still greater numbers, along the Syrian desert into Arabia, forming, especially at the spring season, innumerable flocks. This quail, the only species of the genus known to migrate, has, in fact, a very wide geographical range, being found in China, India, the Cape of Good Hope, and England, and, according to Temminck, in Japan (see Col. Sykes's paper on The Quails and Hempodii of India [Trans, of Zool. Soc. vol. iij). Enormous flights of this bird, after crossing an im- mense surface of sea, are annually observed at the spring and fall to take a brief repose in the islands of Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Crete, in the kingdom of Naples, and about Constantinople, where on those occasions there is a general shooting-match, which lasts two or three days. This always occurs in the autumn. The birds, starting from the Crimea about seven at night, and with a north- erly wind, before dawn accomplish a passage of above sixty leagues in breadth, and alight on the southern shore to feed and repose. In the vernal season the di- rection of the flight is reversed, and the}' arrive in sim- ilar condition on the Russian coast. The same phenom- ena occur at Malta, etc.; and as gregarious birds of pas- sage are known to guide their course by given land- marks, which they distinguish with unerring precision, and which, unless they have been driven out of their usual direction by storms of wind, they invariably ar- rive at or over before they take a new flight, so also quails congregate in Arabia in numbers proportionate to the surface of Western Asia, whither they are pro- ceeding. The providential nature of their arrival with- in and around the camp of the Israelites, in order that they might furnish meat to a murmuring people, ap- pears from the fact of its taking place where it was not to be expected; the localities, we presume, being out of the direction of the ordinary passage ; for, had this not been the case, the dwellers in that region, and the Isra- elites themselves, accustomed to tend their flocks at no great distance from the spot, would have regarded the phenomenon as a well-known periodical occurrence. Aristotle (Anim. viii, 14) mentions the habit; and Pliny (Hist. Nat. x, 23) states that they sometimes alight on vessels in the Mediterranean and sink them ! Belon found quails alight in autumn on a vessel bound from Rhodes to Alexandria ; they were passing from the north to the south, and had wheat in their craws. In the preceding spring, sailing from Zante to the Morea, he saw flights of quails going from south northwards. Buffon relates that M. le Commandant Godelun saw quails constantly passing Malta during certain winds in May, and repassing in September ; and that they flew by night. Tournefort (Voyage, i, 329) says that all the islands of the Archipelago at certain sea- sons of the year are covered with these birds. Col. Sykes states that such quantities were once caught s in Capri, near Naples, as to have afforded the bishop S no small share of his revenue, and that in consequence he has been called Bishop of Quails. The same writer mentions also (Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. ii) that 160,000 quails have been netted in one season on this little island. M. Temminck says that in spring such pro- digious numbers of quails alight on the western shores of the kingdom of Naples, about Nettuno, that one hundred thousand are taken in a day (Yarrell, Brit, Birds [2d ed.], ii, 404). It is interesting to note the time specified : " it was at even" that they began to arrive ; and they, no doubt, continued to come all the night. Many observers have recorded that the quail migrates by night, though this is denied by Col. Montagu
QUAINI
834
QUAM DILECTA
(OrtrithoLDict. 6. v.). "On two successive years I ob- served enormous flights of quails on the north coasl of Algeria, which arrived from the south in the night, and were at daybreak in Bnch numbers through the plains thai scores ol sportsmen had only to >li«><.t as fast as ill. \ ci uld reload" (H. B. Tristram). When the num- bers, however, are very great, and the distance to be remote, we can well imagine that both day ami nighl would be spent on the wing, as on the second occasion recorded in the sacred text. The expression "quails from t lie sea" (Numb. xi. :; 1 i must not be re- stricted to denote that the birds came from the sea as their starting-point, hut it must be taken to show the direction from which they were coming. The quails were, at the time of the event narrated in the sacred writings, on their spring journey ol' migration uorth- wanN.au interesting proof, as Col.Svkes has remarked. of the perpetuation of an instinct through -nine 3300 years; the flight which ted the multitudes at Kibroth- hattaavah might have started from Southern Egypt and crossed the Red Sea near Ras Mohammed, and so up the gulf of Akabah into Arabia Petraea. The Israelites would have had little difficulty in capturing large quan- tities of these birds, as they are known to arrive at places sometimes so completely exhausted by their flight as to be readily taken, not in nets only, but by the hand. See Diod. Sic. (i, 82 [ed. Dindorf ]), Pro- per Alpinus (Rerum /Egypt, iv, 1 ), and Josephus I Int. iii,5). S\ kes I /. c. I says "they arrive in spring on the shores of Provence so fatigued that for the first lew days they allow themselves to he taken by the hand." Diodorus tells us (i, 60) that the inhabitants of Rhino- colura, a town on the border of Palestine and Egypt, placed long nets made of split reeds along the shore a length of many furlongs, in which the quails were arrest- ed that hail crossed the sea in flocks; and that they then preserved them for future subsistence. In the northern parts of Persia and Armenia, according to Morier, quails are taken in great abundance, and with great ease, with the simplest possible machinery. The men stick two poles in their girdles, on which poles they so stretch a coal or a pair of trousers that the sleeves or the legs shall project like the horns of a beast. Thus disguised. they prowl about the fields with a hand-net, and the quails, .simply supposing the strange object to be a horned beast, and therefore harmless to them, allow him to approach till he throws the mi over them. Rude as such a contrivance seems, the Persians catch quails thus with astonishing rapiditj (Second Journey,