290 QUAILS. 



to their being dried in the sun for food, we have equally good 

 evidence from a third traveller,* a foreigner, whose words we 

 will, therefore, translate. There is, says he, a small island off 

 the coast of Egypt, where these birds 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 a pound. The crews of those vessels which in that 

 season lie in the adjacent harbour, have no other food allowed 

 the^i. The object of the Israelites, therefore, in spreading 

 them round the camp, was to dry them a mode of preparing 

 fish and camel's flesh still practised by the Arabs in the very 

 same country. 



The only difficulty seems to be in their being so thickly 

 strewed as to form a solid mass of " two cubits from the face 

 of the earth." But Josephus, who must be allowed to be a 

 better judge of the meaning of words in the Scripture than we 

 can be, and more conversant with the subject on which he 

 writes, explains the passage by saying that it merely meant 

 that the Quails flew within reach of the Israelites, about two 

 cubits above the ground ; which they, in fact, often do when 

 exhausted, and are knocked down by the Arabs with sticks. 



The Quail is the smallest of the poultry tribe ; but there is 

 one more to be mentioned, forming the connecting link between 

 this and the last of the gallinaceous order, by far the largest 

 of the family. We mean the Bustard, of whose courage in 

 attacking a man and horse we have already spoken (see p. 278). 

 The Bustard can fly, but its usual motion is on foot, running 

 with such speed as often to rival a greyhound. Formerly they 

 were common on our plains, and in the open country of Eng- 

 land ; but, as enclosures have taken place, they have gradually 

 disappeared, and are now supposed to be, in this country, an 

 extinct species. 



One great peculiarity deserves mentioning, namely, a singular 



pouch which they have, large enough to hold upwards of a 



quart of water. Its use has not been ascertained ; by many 



it was supposed to be a provision of nature for supplying 



*.Maillet. 



