10 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
Canon Tristram finds that according to calculation the 
season was spring, and the month April,* in which, he is in 
agreement with Clarke and other commentators. This is the 
period when all avine migration runs strong, and with Quails 
in particular, as I can testify. 
The Quails which came to save the Israelites from starva- 
tion, therefore, were making their annual journey northwards, 
only in very unusual numbers, and the sea from which they 
came, or over which they had passed, was we conclude some 
portion of the Red Sea. 
To the prophet Jeremiah, when remonstrating with 
backsliding Judah, the periodical return of birds must have 
been known, or how could he have said, as he did, “ The stork 
in the heaven knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle 
[dove] and the crane and the swallow observe the time of 
their coming.” t 
Jeremiah, who is believed to have been born, and to have 
lived, near the Dead Sea, had probably often watched troops 
of Cranes and Storks passing overhead, as modern travellers 
have done, in many parts of Palestine. 
The above quotations from the Old Testament clearly 
prove that some, at least, of the Scriptural writers were well 
acquainted with the phenomenon of migration, nor were the 
classical poets behind them. Passing over an incidental 
comparison by Homer of the Trojans to Cranes fleeing 
from the coming winter,$ there was Hesiod, who lived in 
the eighth century B.c. and like his great predecessor, knew 
the Crane. He had prebably often watched them, when on 
passage high in the air, in Beeotia. To Hesiod their cries 
sounded like a summons to the labourer to plough his land, 
just as in other countries they have been looked on as the 
heralds of spring. 
Then there was the poet Herodorus (circa 525 B.c.), who 
though not mentioning Cranes, guessed that the Hawks he 
* ©“ Natural History of the Bible,” p. 231. 
{+ April 3rd, 1875. Being at Silsilis on the Nile, the lentil fields were 
found to be full of Quail, so that we could realise on a smaller scale the scene 
in the Israelitish camp on those two memorable occasions, It was not easy 
to recover such small birds in the luxuriance of the lentils, when killed, but 
thirteen couple proved an acceptahle addition to our fare. 
+ Jeremiah viii, 7. 
§ “ Tliad,” Bk. IIT. 
