QUAIL.] NATURAL HISTORY. 253 



as cranes have ; and, for they dread the goshawk, they be 

 busy to comfort the leaders. Only those birds have the 

 falling-evil as a man hath, and the sparrows also. And 

 they pass the sea, and, when they be weary, they fall down 

 upon the water, and rest upon the one wing, and maketh 

 his sail of the other wing. His best meat is venomous 

 seeds and grains, and for that cause in old time men for- 

 bade eating of them ; and an herb that hight hellebore is 

 curlews' meat, and if another beast eateth it in great 

 quantity, it is perilous and poison. For beasts have broad 

 and wide veins, by which the smoke passeth, and by 

 strength of that herb, the heart is suddenly cooled and 

 dead ; and curlews have strait veins about the heart, and 

 therefore venomous smoke hath no true passage, but he 

 bideth in the stomach, and is there defied [digested] and 

 made subtle, and so it grieveth them not. And he runneth 

 upon the earth most swiftly. And such birds love birds of 

 their own kind. 



Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xii. 7. 



As touching Quails, they always come before the cranes 

 depart. The manner of their flying is in troops ; but not 

 without some danger of the sailors, when they approach 

 near to land. For oftentimes they settle in great number 

 on their sails, and there perch, which they do evermore in 

 the night, and with their poise bear down barks and small 

 vessels, and finally sink them. When the south wind blows, 

 they never fly. The foremost of them, as he approacheth 

 near to land, payeth toll for the rest unto the hawk, who 

 presently for his welcome preyeth upon him. Whensoever 

 at any time they are upon their remove and departure out 

 of these parts, they persuade other birds to bear them 

 company. If a contrary wind should arise and drive against 

 them, and hinder their flight to prevent this inconvenience, 

 they be well provided ; for they fly well ballasted either 

 with small, weighty stones within their feet, or else with 

 sand stuffed in their craw. 



Holland's Pliny, bk. x. ch. xxiii. 



[On the passage in " Antony and Cleopatra," Douce (Illustra- 

 tions, vol. ii. p. 86-7) gives a note on the classical Quail- 

 fighting. Shakespeare probably got the idea from North's 

 "Plutarch." 



