guar] 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 (Bérthelet), 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. xxiit. 
[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 Worth’s 
“Plutarch.” 
