BRITISH BIRDS. 361 



Quails are very generally diffused throughout 

 Asia, Africa, and the southern parts of Europe, but 

 rare in temperate climates; they are birds of 

 passage, and are seen in immense flocks flying 

 across the Mediterranean, from Europe to the 

 shores of Africa, in the autumn, and returning 

 again in the spring, frequently alighting in their 

 passage on the intervening islands, particularly of 

 the Archipelago, which they almost cover with 

 their numbers. On the western coasts of the king- 

 dom of Naples such prodigious numbers have ap- 

 peared, that an hundred thousand it is said have 

 been taken in a day within the space of four or five 

 miles. From these circumstances it appears highly 

 probable, that the Quails which supplied the Israel- 

 ites with food, during their journey through the 

 wilderness, were driven thither on their passage to 

 the north, by a wind from the south-west, sweeping 

 over Ethiopia and Egypt towards the shores of the 

 Red Sea. Quails are not very numerous here: 

 they breed with us, and many of them are said to 

 remain throughout the year, changing their quar- 

 ters from the interior to the sea coast. The female 

 makes her nest like the Partridge, and lays to the 

 number of six or seven* eggs of a greyish colour, 

 speckled with brown. The young birds follow the 

 mother as soon as hatched, but do not continue 

 long together; they are scarcely grown up before 



* In France they are said to lay fifteen or twenty. Buff. 



They are sometimes seen in a bevy of fifteen together, in this 

 country ; and while running through the meadows, are known by 

 their quickly repeated short whistle of "whit, whit." They fly 

 quick and near the ground. 



VOL. I. 2 Z 



