368 TETRAONID^:. 



providential supply of animal food was foretold. As to 

 the particular bird which is referred to under the name 

 translated in our version, "Quails," only two opinions worth 

 noticing have been offered one, advanced by Hasselquist 

 and Burckhardt, that the bird in question is the Pin-tailed 

 Sand Grouse (Pterocles Alchata, or setarius) ; the- other, 

 that it is the Coturnix of ancient and modern naturalists. 

 The objection to the former view is, that the Sand Grouse, 

 though abundant in the East, is not in the habit of making 

 long nights, has very powerful wings, is never seen fatigued 

 by migration, and is at all times a tenant of the wilderness, 

 far from water. A powerful argument in favour of the other 

 rests on the traditional etymology of the Arabs, who call the 

 Quail selva, the Hebrew name for the bird in question being 

 I^JfcP selav. Taking it, then, for granted, that the selav of 

 the Pentateuch is the selva of the Arabs, and the bird which 

 we call the Quail, we have here one of the earliest recorded 

 notices of the instinctive habits of a known animal, and 

 one which the reader will probably admit, when he has read 

 what follows, to be fair evidence that, in this particular 

 instance at least, no change has taken place in the most 

 noticeable habits of the animal during a period of more 

 than three thousand years. In the case of domesticated 

 animals as the Pigeon, for instance great changes may be 

 produced by artificial means in a hundredth part of the 

 time ; but I am now speaking of a bird which has been 

 submitted to none but natural agencies, and I desire only 

 that the reader should compare the incidental notice of a 

 wild bird contained in the Pentateuch with the following 

 more detailed description of the same bird, still existing 

 in a wild state, compiled from various authorities. 



Pliny* says, " Quails always arrive before Cranes; they 

 are small birds, and, when they come to us, terrestrial in 

 their habits, rather than birds of flight. Their appearance 

 is not unattended with danger to sailors, when they draw 



* Nat. Hist. lib. x. cap. xxiii. 



