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PICTURES OF BIRD LIFE. 
inhabitants persist in calling a red-breasted migratory thrush which visits them a 
robin. Another curious and beautiful allied species is the lophortyx of California, 
remarkable for its crested head. 
The Quail was well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who prized 
it much for its pugnacious habits, and found great amusement in Ouail-fights, as 
do the Chinese at present. The Egyptians eat Quails raw, but dried, and probably 
salted. Lucretius grew philosophical over them, pointing out how one creature s 
food is another's bane, and the reverse, exemplifying the manner in which goats 
and Quails fatten on hellebore, which was poisonous to man. Pliny, after his 
wont, tells marvellous tales of their migration. They reach us, he says, before 
the cranes come, small though they be, and when they do come, come on the ground 
to us rather than through the air. As they draw near land, it is not without 
peril to ships; for they often light on their sails, and that in the night too, in 
such numbers that the ships sink under their weight. They come by certain 
well-known resting-places, and never fly with the south wind, as it is damp and 
heavy; but they like to be borne on the wings of the wind, inasmuch as they have 
heavy bodies for their size and small strength. Their cries on arrival tell of the 
extreme labour it has been ; so they choose the north wind, and fly with a 
mother Quad to guide them. A hawk kills the first that lands. On their return 
they always solicit an escort, so the bird called bee-eater, the horned owl, and the 
ortolan fly away with them. He gives us a scrap of Roman folk-lore, too, in 
saying people did not eat them because they were supposed to be subject to 
epilepsy, or falling sickness. This did not, however, deter gourmands from feasting 
on them. When Aristophanes draws his ludicrous picture of the Athenian citizen 
who travelled to the country of the birds, we may be sure the Quail is not for¬ 
gotten amongst the discordant chorus which welcomes him— 
“ A tit-lark and magpie, a cuckoo and pigeon, 
A hawk and di-dapper, woodpecker and widgeon, 
A turtle and stockdove, an osprey and Quail, 
Chaffinch, bullfinch, teal, linnet, red moor-hen and rail ; 
Odso! What a screaming and whistling they make! 
IIow they sidle and fidget, and noddle and shake!”* 
More trustworthy modern writers agree with the above in affirming that 
Quails on their migration invariably fly by night, and often alight on vessels in 
their weariness. One was at a small town on the coast in the month of May, 
* “ The Birds,” Cary's Translation, Act I., sc. iv. 
