WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 



native country, and increased and multiplied their own 

 species, they leave with their progeny for a less severe 

 climate, arriving in good time on our own shore to afford 

 food just as the most severe part of the winter renders 

 their appearance most welcome, thus balancing their 

 favours by periodical visits to the hungry poor of both 

 regions. Not only are the starving people of the cold 

 regions supplied with food by migratory birds, but also 

 were the famished Israelites suppled with food in the 

 wilderness by the same means, as our much-loved British 

 naturalist, the late Mr. Yarrell, in vol. ii., p. 358, quotes 

 from the Psalms : — 



" He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven : and by His 

 power He brought in the south wind. He rained flesli also 

 upon them as dust, and feathered fowls ... in the midst of 

 their camp, round about their habitations. So they did eat, and 

 were well filled : for He gave them^ their own desire." 



Mr. Yarrell, after a careful investigation of this passage, 

 remarks at p. 360, vol. ii. : — 



"With these facts before us, considering the positive 

 testimony of the Psalmist, that the unexpected supply of 

 food to the Israelites was a bird, and that bird, agreeably 

 to the Septuagint and Josephus, a quail, that only one 

 species of quail migrates in prodigious numbers, that 

 species, the subject of the present notice, we are authorized 

 to pronounce the Cohornix dadylisonans to be the identical 

 species with which the Israelites were fed. We have here 

 proof of the perpetuation of an instinct through 3300 years 

 not pervading a whole species, but that part of a species 

 existing within certain geographical limits; an instinct 

 characterized by a peculiarity, which modern observers 

 have also noticed, of making their migratory flights by 

 night." 



Innumerable lives are lost during the migratory move- 



230 



