QUAESTORS QUAKERS. 



769 



was boldly pronounced, and in several instances 

 carried into effect, England naturally separated 

 more and more from the other powers in consequence 

 of its constitutional system, until at length Canning 

 proclaimed the principle of non-intervention. (See 

 Intervention.) History will yet speak of quadruple 

 and quintuple alliances in the great struggle be- 

 tween the friends of liberty and the friends of des- 

 potism. See Alliance. 



QUAESTOR. See Questor. 

 QUAGGA, (equus quagga.) This animal which 

 is an inhabitant of the southern parts of Africa, is 

 not unlike the zebra : its ears however are shorter, 

 and it is not marked with stripes on its fore legs or 

 hinder parts ; its rump is of a greyish colour, and 

 its belly, legs, and tail whitish. The quagga is a 

 social animal, living in large troops, is far more 

 tractable than the zebra, and is said to be occasion, 

 ally used at the Cape of Good Hope for domestic 

 purposes. Notwithstanding this mildness of charac- 

 ter when domesticated, it is exceedingly fearless in 

 its native plains, and is even said to be more than 

 a match for the hyaena, fighting desperately both 

 with its hoofs and teeth. It will breed with the 

 common horse ; a mixed race of this kind, possess- 

 ing great beauty of form, and retaining in a great 

 degree, the characteristic markings of the quagga, 

 existed in England some years since. The quagga 

 has received a variety of names from authors, thus 

 Pennant terms it the quacha, Masson the opeagha, 

 and Sparrman calls it by the name here adopted. 

 It should be remarked that Edwards has mistaken 

 it for the female zebra. 



QUAIL (cottirnix, Cuv.) The quails are very 

 closely allied to the partridge, differing only in being 

 smaller, and having a more delicate beak, shorter 

 tail, and no spur on the legs. The quail is found in 

 every country from the Cape of Good Hope to the 

 North Cape. These birds are deemed excellent ] 

 food by the moderns, but the ancients entertained a 

 prejudice against their flesh, from an idea that they 

 fed upon hellebore, and were subject to epileptic 

 attacks : Semen vencni gratissimus cibus, quam ob 

 causam, earn damnavere mensee, Plin. lib. x. cap. 

 23. Quails are birds of passage, appearing in Eu- 

 rope about May, and departing in September ; they 

 appear to winter in Africa. In some parts, however, 

 they remain the whole year. (See the work of Buf- 

 ~fon.) Besides the celebrity of these birds as arti- 

 cles of food, they have been much prized for their 

 pugnacious propensities. Quail fighting appears to 

 have been as common at Athens, as cock-fighting 

 in more modern times. This diversion was also in 

 high estimation in Rome, and is still pursued in 

 some parts of Italy. In the East, and especially in 

 China, they are also pitted against each other, after 

 having been armed with artificial spurs. The 

 European quail is about seven inches long ; the 

 feathers of the head are black, edged with a rusty 

 brown. The hinder part of the neck and crown of 

 the head are divided by a long pale-yellow line ; the 

 breast is of a yellowish-red, spotted with black ; the 

 scapulars and feathers of the back are marked with 

 a pale yellow line in their middle, arid with ferru- 

 ginous and blackish bars on their sides. The notes 

 of the cock and hen quail are very dissimilar ; and 

 it is remarkable that the proportion of males much 

 exceeds that of females. Their flesh is more 

 juicy and delicate than that of the partridge. 

 American quail, or partridge, as it is termed in 

 Pennsylvania, belongs to the subgenus ortyx, dis- 

 tinguished from the former by having a larger, 

 shorter, and more arched bill, and peculiar to Ame- 

 rica. The American quail is found from New Eng- 

 land to Honduras. Notwithstanding there is some 



resemblance in form and general appearance, be- 

 tween the quails of the two continents, they differ 

 very widely in their habits ; thus instead of being a 

 bird of passage, scarcely any of the feathered tribe 

 appear to have so strong local attachments as the 

 American quail. This is well known to sportsmen, 

 who are in the habit of turning out pairs of these 

 birds when an unusually severe winter has destroyed 

 the coveys in their neighbourhood. The quail con- 

 structs her nest in May ; this is made on the ground, 

 and generally at the foot of a thick tuft of grass, 

 that shelters and conceals it. The materials em- 

 ployed in its construction are leaves and dry grass. 

 The female lays about fifteen or twenty eggs, which 

 are perfectly white. Wilson is of opinion that the 

 common idea, that quails occasionally lay in each 

 other's nests, is correct. About the beginning of 

 September, the young birds nearly attain their full 

 growth, and associate in flocks or coveys of various 

 sices, and at this time also their untiring persecution 

 by sportsmen and trappers begins. During the end 

 of the summer, and beginning of the autumn, the 

 note of the male is everywhere heard ; this is very 

 similar to the words " Bob White," accompanied 

 with a whistling sound. About the first of October, 

 they prepare for winter, and to enter on what is 

 termed their running season, when they are to be 

 met with in swamps and thickets, instead of the open 

 fields. The food of the quail is composed of grain, 

 seeds, insects, &c., but their favourite articles are 

 buckwheat and Indian corn. Like the rest of the 

 gallinaceous tribe, the quails fly with a loud whir- 

 ring sound, occasioned by the shortness of their 

 wings and the rapidity with which they move them. 

 During the winter they often suffer greatly from the 

 inclemency of the weather, and whole coveys are 

 found frozen in spots where they had endeavoured 

 to shelter themselves. The American quail is about 

 nine inches long, and fourteen in extent, usually 

 weighing from seven to eight ounces. The bill is 

 black ; line over the eye, down the neck and whole 

 chin pure white, bordered by a band of black, which 

 descends and forms a crescent on the throat ; the 

 eye is dark hazel ; crown, neck, and upper part of 

 the breast, red brown ; sides of the neck spotted 

 with white and black on a reddish brown ground ; 

 back, scapulars, and lesser coverts, red brown, 

 mixed with ash, and minutely marked with black ; 

 wings plain and dusky ; lower part of the breast 

 and belly whitish, marked with black arrow heads; 

 tail ash, spotted with reddish brown. See Wilson, 

 Ornithol., vol. vi. and Nuttall, Ornithol., 647. 



QUAKERS, OB FRIENDS, [the following arti- 

 cle was written by a member of the society of 

 Friends, and therefore expresses their opinions ;] 

 a society of Christians which took its rise in Eng- 

 land about the middle of the seventeenth century. 

 George Fox, a native of Drayton, in Leicestershire, 

 was the first minister whose preaching was instru- 

 mental in convincing the people of those religious 

 views which distinguish the society, and his disin- 

 terested labours were so successful, that, in a few 

 years, a numerous society was gathered in England 

 and subsequently in America, where the great body 

 of them is now found. He was born in the year 

 1624, and commenced his ministerial labours in 

 1647, being then in the twenty-third year of his age. 

 He travelled much on foot, and from conscientious 

 motives, not only refused to receive any compensa- 

 tion for preaching, but defrayed his own expenses. 

 The seventeenth century was distinguished by the 

 extraordinary interest which pervaded England on 

 the subject of religion. Many persons were awak- 

 ened to an earnest inquiry, " What shall we do to 

 be saved ?" and not finding, in the most precise 

 3 c 



