HISTORICAL ACCOUNT 5 



which, if authentic, would seem to be our earliest 

 definite migration record. 



Apparently quails came in tremendous abun- 

 dance, since it is stated in the book oi Numbers (XI, 

 32), that "the people stood up all that day and all 

 that night, and all the next day, and they gathered 

 the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten 

 homers." Hugh Gladstone ' informs us that the 

 capacity of the unit of measure called the homer has 

 been estimated variously at from 48 to 80 gallons. 

 He assumes that 600 men (said to be the number of 

 heads of households or "tent-holders" that took 

 part in the exodus) were engaged in the capture of 

 birds; on these data the Israelites during thirty-six 

 hours may have taken over 9,000,000 quails! 



Persians and Arabs formed part of their calendar 

 en data taken from the movements of birds, and, 

 with other ancient peoples, celebrated with song and 

 festival the return of spring as marked by the arrival 

 of migrants. In Macedonia to-day, on the first of 

 March, children pass from house to house carrying 

 the figure of a swallow carved from wood, while they 

 sing that the swallow comes and with it spring. 

 (See Fig. i .) 



The Chippeway and various tribes of Plains 

 Indians, transposing cause and eflFect, believed that 

 the bluebird (in this case the Arctic bluebird) bore 



^ Record Bags and Shooting Records (1922), pp. 59, 60. 



