QUAILS AND HEMIPODII OF INDIA. 13 
I have carefully examined and compared specimens from China, India, the Cape of 
Good Hope, and England, and must pronounce them, in spite of the extraordinary 
geographical range, to be one species, the differences between the specimens not being 
greater than are found amongst individuals from the same locality. The Indian Bird 
has the same cry of Pickerwick, or Peek-wheet-wheet, which, M. Temminck says, in- 
duced M. Meyer to give it the specific appellation of dactylisonans’. 
A matter of considerable historical interest is associated with this Bird, as there is 
the strongest ground for believing that it is the identical species, Tetrao Israelitarum, 
of whose instinct it pleased the Divinity to avail himself in supplying the famishing 
Israelites with food in the wilderness. Authors have differed with respect to the real 
nature of this food; Rudbeck? asserting that it was a Flying Fish, and Ludolph? that 
it was a Locust: but the 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th verses of the 78th Psalm, deter- 
mine it to have been a Bird. ‘‘ He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven: and 
by his power he brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also upon them as 
dust, and feathered fowls [fowl of wing] like as the sand of the sea: and he let it fall 
in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations. So they did eat, and were 
well filled: for he gave them their own desire.” 
Bochart* and Dr. Harris5 state that the Hebrew word used is Selav, in Arabic Selwee, 
or Selvai (a Quail), which is constantly rendered by the Septuagint oprvyounzpa, a large 
kind of Quail. Aristotle, indeed, calls the Rail (Rallus and Crex) Ortygometra: but 
on the whole it is to be inferred from Bochart that the Greeks used the word rather to 
indicate the size of the oprv€ than as descriptive of -a different Bird; and Josephus 
considers optuyountpa and oprvé synonymous, and states that Quails abound on the Gulf 
of the Red Sea’; and we know that they abound in Egypt, Barbary, Asia Minor, and 
at certain seasons in Europe, at the present day. 
There is another mode to connect the bird of Scripture with the Cot. dactylisonans, 
and this is readily done by the simple fact of its being the only species of Quail that 
migrates in multitudes ; indeed we have not any satisfactory account that any other 
species of Quail is migratory. Aristotle mentions the habit ; and Pliny states they some- 
times 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 the south northwards. Buffon 
relates that M. le Commandant Godelun saw Quails constantly passing Malta during cer- 
tain winds in May, and repassing in September; and that they flew by night. Tourne- 
' Pig. et Gal. tom. iii. p. 501. 2 Ichthyol. Bibl. 
$ Comment. ad Hist. Aithiop. p. 108. 4 De Animalibus §. Scripture. 
° Natural History of the Bible, p. 317. 6 Lib, ili. cap. i. 
