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BufFon proceeds to obferve, that if quails are kept in a cage, 

 they are remarkably impatient of confinement in the autumn and 

 fpring, whence he infers that they then want to migrate r ; he 

 alfo adds, in the fame period, that this uneafinefs begins an hour 

 before the fun rifes, and that it continues all the night. 



This great naturalift does not ftate this obfervation as having 

 been made by himfelf, and it feems upon the face of it to be a 

 very extraordinary one. 



No one (at lean, with us) ever keeps quails in a cage except 

 the poulterers, who always fell them as faff as they are fat, and 

 confequently can give no account of what happens to them 

 during fo long an imprifonment as this obfervation necefiarily im- 

 plies. 



No fuch remarkable uneafinefs hath ever been attended to in 

 any other fuppofed bird of paffage during its confinement : but, 

 allowing the facl to be as BufFon ftates, he himfelf fupplies us 

 with the real caufe of this impatience. 



He afierts, that quails conftantly moult twice s a year, viz. at 

 the clofe both of fummer and winter ; whence it follows, that 



the 



r It may alfo arife from this bird's being of fo quarrelfome a difpo- 

 fition, and confequently moft likely to fight with its fellow priibners 

 when they are all in greateft vigour alter moulting, and on the return 

 of the fpring. 



BufFon allows that they will fightfor a grain of millet, and adds, "car 

 " parmi les animaux il faut un fujet reel pour fe battre." M. de Buffon 

 hath never been in a cockpit. 



s I have often heard that certain birds moult twice a year, fome of 

 which I have kept myfelf without their changing their feathers more 

 than once. 



1 Ihould fuppofe that this notion arifes from fome birds not moulting 

 regularly in the autumn every year; and when the change takes place in 

 the following fpring, they very commonly die : I can fcarcely think that 

 many of them are equal to two illnelles of fo long a continuance, which 

 are conftantly to return within twelve months. 



I mould 



