AND^LUSIAN QUAIL. 
53 
promises a fine niglit, they repair to the strand, and take 
their departure at six or seven in the evening, and have 
finished a journey of Mtj leagues by break of day/ 
As an article of food, the flesh of the Quail is much 
esteemed, although some consider it too heating to be quite 
wholesome. Yarrell says, * I consider the Quail very 
heating food, and it is probable the French proverb, 
" hot as a Quail," may apply rather to its stimulative 
qualities than to its animal heat.' We would venture to 
suggest that the saying of our Gallic neighbours might 
have application to the bird's well-known pugnacity of 
disposition ; the heat may probably refer to temper. The 
ancients, it appears, did not use this as a table bird, be- 
cause, as Pliny tells us, ^ they supposed it to feed on helle- 
bore and poisonous seeds, and to be subject to epilepsy.' 
The market price of a Quail in this country, was, in 1512, 
2d. ; we now give about 25. for one, so that it is rather 
expensive eating. The shrill whistling note of the Quail, 
which is generally repeated three times in rapid succession, 
is so seldom heard when the breeding season is over, that 
the males are then said to lose their voice. The nest is 
generally found among wheat, clover, or long grass ; it is a 
mere hollow in the ground, lined with dry grass, straw, or 
clover stalks. The eggs, from seven to twelve in number, 
are white, tinged with yellowish red, blotched or speckled 
with brown ; the female sits upon them three weeks, and 
the young follow her as soon as they are excluded from the 
shell, commencing, at once, to feed upon seeds, grain, 
insects, and green leaves. Partridge shooters often find 
and kill them in the wheat stubbles : when they have been 
once flushed and alarmed they are diflficult to raise, lying 
very close until nearly trodden on. 
There is little doubt that this is the bird called Ortyx by 
Aristotle ; Buffon calls it la Caille^ or la Croquet ; in the 
ancient British tongue it is termed Sofliar. 
The Andalusian, or Gibraltar Quail, or Hemipode, is 
a bird of this genus, of which a few specimens have been 
taken in Britain. This is the Hemipoclous Tachydromiis of 
Gould, literally the * half-footed swift runner,' nearly allied 
