THE OUAIL. 351 



Irascible disposition. 



veyed by stage-coaches ; about a hundred in a 

 large square box, divided into five or six com- 

 partments, one above another, just high enough 

 to admit the quails to stand upright. Were they 

 allowed a greater height than this, they would 

 soon kill themselves; and even with this precau- 

 tion, the feathers on the top of the head are ge- 

 nerally beaten off. These boxes have wire on 

 the fore part, and each partition is furnished with 

 a small trough for food. They may be forwarded 

 in this manner, without difficulty, to great dis- 

 tances, 



Quails are birds of undaunted courage; and 

 their quarrels often terminate in mutual destruc- 

 tion. This irascible disposition induced the an- 

 cient Greeks and Romans to fight them with 

 ^ach other, as the moderns do game cocks. And 

 such favourites were the conquerors, that in one 

 instance Augustus punished a prefect of Egypt 

 with death for bringing to his table one of these 

 birds which had acquired celebrity for its victo- 

 ries. The fighting of quails is even now a 

 fashionable diversion in China, and in some parts 

 of Italy. 



That these birds have an instinctive knowledge 

 of the precise time for emigration, has been 

 proved by a very singular fact in some young 

 quails, which having been bred in cages from the 

 earliest period of their lives, had never enjoyed, 

 and therefore could not feel, the loss of liberty, 

 four successive years they were observed to 



