Columbi Cotnrnix 63 



?, in Latin called Vinago, has never met my eye up 

 to this time, nor have I yet found out what name it bears 

 among our countrymen or among Germans. But I have seen 

 doves in Venice half as big again as those of our own land, 

 although I do not think that they could be Vinagines, but 

 birds brought to those parts out of Campania, where Pliny 

 notes the Doves to be exceeding large. 



OF THE COTURNIX. 



oprvj;, coturnix, in English a quale, in German eyn 

 wachtel. 



PLINY. 



The Coturnix is a little bird, and, when it comes 

 to us, keeps on the ground Tnore than aloft. Yet 

 it flies hither just as Grues and Ciconise, not without 

 danger to sea-faring men, when they approach the 

 land. For these birds often settle on the sails, and 

 that always at night, and so sink ships. The seed 

 of Veratrum, or, as others read, Venenum, is a very 

 grateful food to the Coturnices, and for this cause 

 men have condemned them for the table ; further- 

 more it is the custom for them to be spurned on 

 account of the falling sickness, to which, they alone 

 of animals, save man, are subject. 



Now since these things are so, I marvel much what evil 

 genius put it into the mind of my fellow Britons to esteem 

 them thus among their delicacies, when their flesh is liable to 

 ills so many, namely poison and the falling sickness. The 

 Quail is like the Partridge, although many times smaller. 

 As Aristotle writes, it claims a property peculiar to it of 

 having both crop and gullet large and wide near to the 

 stomach. 



