180 THE BISHOP OF QUAILS. 



what was the kingdom of Naples they have at times 

 appeared in such great quantities that, within a space of 

 five or six miles, 100,000 have been taken in a single day ; 

 and that on the island of Capri, near the city of Naples, so 

 many used to lie captured as ^o constitute the cliief 

 revenues of the Bishop of the diocese, who was therefore 

 called the Bishop of Quails. 



Smart, in his " Travels in Turkey," tells us further, that 

 " in the vicinity of Constantinople the sun is often nearly 

 obscured by the prodigious flights of Quails, which alight 

 on the coasts of the Black Sea near the Bosphorus, and 

 are taken by means of nets spi'ead on high poles planted 

 along the cliffs, some yards from its edges, against which 

 the birds, exhausted by their passage over the sea, strike 

 themselves and fall. In October, 1829, the Sultan sent 

 orders to one of his admirals to catch 400 dozen. 

 In three days they were collected, and brought to him 

 alive in small cages." And Madden says that "they visit 

 Egypt in immense flights about harvest-time, where the 

 Arabs take them by thousands in nets. They fly," he 

 adds, "in a direct line from north to south, and very 

 rarely from east to west." 



The account given in Holy Writ, as to the mode of 

 drying these birds in the sun, is also singularly corro- 

 borated by the traveller Maillet. "There is," says he, 

 " a small island off the coast of Egypt, where the Quails 

 usually alight in the autumn, on which they are taken in 

 such quantities, that, after having been stripped of their 

 feathers, and dried in the burning sands for about a 

 quarter of an hour, they are worth but one penny the 

 pound. The crews of those vessels which at that season 

 of the year lie in the adjacent harbour, have no other 

 food allowed them." 



The Great Bustard {Slor Tvftpp, Sw. ; Trapgaas, 

 Tntppc, Danish ; Otis tarda, Linn.), which was once 



