[ 2 75 ] 
No one (at lead with us) ever keeps quails in a 
cage except the poulterers, who always fell them as 
fad as they are fat, and confequendy can give no 
account of what happens to them during fo long an 
imprifonment as this obfervation necefifarily implies. 
No fuch remarkable uneafinefs hath ever been at- 
tended to in any other fuppoled bird of paflage 
during its confinement; but, allowing the fa dt to be 
as M. de Buffion dates, he himfelf fupplies us with 
the real caufe of this impatience. 
He aflerts, that quails condantly moult twice * a 
year, viz. at the clofe both of dimmer and winter ; 
whence it follows, that the bird, in autumn and 
the fpring, mud be in full vigour upon its re- 
covery from this periodical illnefs : it can therefore as 
little brook confinement, as the phyfician’s patient 
upon the return of health after illnefs. 
Thus much I have thought it neceflary to fay, in 
anfwer to M. de Buffbn, who u dum errat, docet,” 
who fcarcely ever argues ill but when he is mifinformed 
as to fadts, and who often, from drength of under- 
danding, disbelieves fuch intelligence as might impofe 
upon a naturalid of lefs acutenefs and penetration. 
* I have often heard that certain birds moult twice a year, fome 
of which I have kept myfelf without their changing their fea- 
thers more than once. 
I fhould 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 
iilnefles of fo long a continuance, which are conftantly to return 
within twelvemonths. 
I fhould therefore rather account for the extraordinary brifk- 
nefs of a quail in autumn and the fpring, from its recovery after 
moulting in the former, and from the known effedts of the fpring 
as to moll animals in the latter. 
N n 2 
The 
