316 QUAILS. 



favourite an amusement. In the Scriptures, " to hunt 

 the Partridge on the mountains," is alluded to as a well- 

 known sport ; and to this day, though not exactly with 

 the same weapon, it is practised by the Arabs of Mount 

 Lebanon. They make a slight square frame of wood, 

 of about five feet in height, over which they stretch an 

 ox-hide, perforated in three or four places. The ox-hide 

 is moved quietly, in an upright position, along the ground, 

 and the Arab, concealing himself behind it, is hidden 

 from the view of the game, which unsuspectingly allow 

 the sportsman to come within shot of them. The Arab, 

 seeing through one of the apertures, quietly protrudes 

 the muzzle of his long musket through another hole, and 

 firing upon the birds, as they feed in covies upon the 

 ground, kills a great many of them*. 



Our limits will not allow us to dwell much longer on 

 this family of birds, which includes Quails ; but we can- 

 not leave them without showing how strongly modern 

 travellers corroborate the account given in the Scriptures 

 of the prodigious numbers of Quails, and the mode of 

 drying them for food. 



"And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and 

 brought Quails from the sea, and let them fall by the 

 camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it 

 were a day's journey on the other side, round about the 

 camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of 

 the earth. And 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 : 

 and they spread them all abroad for themselves round 

 about the camp." (Numbers xi. 31, 32.) 



Their coming with the wind, their immense quantities, 

 covering a circle of thirty or forty miles, and being 

 spread in the sun for drying, appeared so impossible to 

 one of our most learned, commentators on the Bible t, 

 that he was persuaded our translation was incorrect, and 

 that, instead of Quails, locusts were meant. Here, how- 



* FRANKLIN'S Constantinople, vol. ii. t Bishop Patrick. 



