or NATURAL HISTORY. 477 



as a wonder even by the country people, who have the 

 greateft opportunities of ftuinbling upon fadts of this kind. 

 When, accordingly, a few fvvallows or martins are found 

 torpid in winter, and have been revived by a gentle heat, 

 the fact, and few fuch fadls there are, is carefully recorded 

 as fingular in all the periodical publications of Europe. 



Mr. Pennant informs us, from undoubted authority, that 

 fome quails, and other birds which are generally fuppofed to 

 leave this ifland in winter, retire to the fea-coafts, and pick 

 up their food among the fea-weeds*. 



* Ouails,' Mr. Pennant remarks, « are birds of paiTage ; 

 ' fome entirely quitting our iflands, others fhifting their 

 ' quarters. A gentleman, to whom this work lies under 



* great obligations, has aflured us, that thefe birds migrate 

 ' out of the neighbouring inland counties, into the hundreds 



< of EfTcx in Odlober, and continue there all the winter : If 



* froft or fnow drive them out of the flubble-fields and 

 ' marfhes, they retreat to the fea-fide, flielter themfelves a- 

 •^ mong the weeds, and live upon what they can pick up 

 « from the algae, &c. between high and low water mark. 



< Our friend remarks, that the time of their appearance in 



* EiTex coincides with that of their leaving the inland coun- 

 ' ties f .' 



A quail, it muft be allowed, fecms to be very much un- 

 qualified for a long migration •, for its tail is fhort, the bird 

 never rifes more than twenty or thirty feet from the ground, 

 and it feldom flies above three hundred yards at a time. Be- 

 lon, however, an author of great fagacity and credit, tells 

 us, that, in his paffage from Rhodes to Alexandria, many, 

 quails flying from north to fouth, were taken in his fhip. 

 From this circumftance, he remarks, « I am perlliaded 



< that they fhift places ♦, for formerly, when I failed out of 



* Brit. Zool. Vol, i. page aio. .id edit. 8vo, 

 I Pennant, ibid. 



M M m 



