QUAILS. 
109 
protrudes the muzzle of his long musket through 
another hole, and firing upon the birds, as they feed 
in coyies upon the ground, kills a great many of 
them *. 
Our limits will not allow us to dwell much longer 
on this family of birds, which includes Quails ; but 
we cannot leave them without showing how strongly 
modem travellers corroborate the account given in 
the Scriptures, of the prodigious numbers of Quails, 
and the mode of drying them for food. 
u And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and 
brought Quails from the sea, and let them fall by the 
camp, as it were a day s journey on this side, and as it 
were a day's journey on the other side, round about 
the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the 
face of the earth. And the people stood up all that 
day, and all that night, and all the next day, and 
they gathered the Quails ; he that gathered least 
gathered ten homers ; and they spread them all abroad 
for themselves round about the camp." — Numbers, 
xi. 31,32. 
Their coming with the wind, their immense quan- 
tities, covering a circle of thirty or forty miles, and 
being spread in the sun for drying, appeared so im- 
possible to one of our most learned commentators on 
the Bible t, that he was persuaded our translation 
was incorrect, and that instead of Quails, locusts 
were meant. Here, however, we have the evidence 
of eye-witnesses. “ J Near Constantinople, in the 
Autumn, the sun is often nearly obscured by the pro- 
* Franklin’s Constantinople , vol. ii. 
•f- Bishop Patrick. 
$ Stade’s Travels in Turkey, vol. i. 
