QUAIL: kwal (selaw; ortugometra; Latin Coturnix vulgaris): A game bird of the family Coturnix, closely related to "partridges" (which see). Quail and partridges are near relatives, the partridge a little larger and of brighter color. Quail are like the gray, brown and tan of earth. Their plumage is cut and penciled by markings, and their flesh juicy and delicate food. Their habits are very similar. They nest on the ground and brood on from 12 to 20 eggs. The quail are more friendly birds and live in the open, brooding along roads and around fields. They have a longer, fuller wing than the partridge and can make stronger flight. In Palestine they were migratory. They are first mentioned in Ex 16:13: "And it came to pass at even, that the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the camp." This describes a large flock in migration, so that they passed as a cloud. Nu 11:31-33: "And there went forth a wind from Yahweh, and brought quail from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, about a day's journey on this side, and a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and about two cubits above the face of the earth. And the people rose up all that day, and all the night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp"; compare Ps 78:26-30:

"He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens;

And by his power he guided the south wind.

He rained flesh also upon them as the dust,

And winged birds as the sand of the seas:

And he let it fall in the midst of their camp,

Round about their habitations.

So they did eat, and were well filled;

And he gave them their own desire."

Again the birds are mentioned in migration. Those that fell around the camp and the bread that was sent from heaven are described in Ps 105:39-42. Commentators have had trouble with the above references. They cause the natural historian none--they are so in keeping with the location and the laws of Nature. First the Hebrew selaw means "to be fat." That would be precisely the condition of the quail after a winter of feeding in the South. The time was early spring, our April, and the quail were flocking from Africa and spreading in clouds--even to Europe. They were birds of earth, heavy feeders and of plump, full body. Migration was such an effort that when forced to cross a large body of water they always waited until the wind blew in the direction of their course, lest they tire and fall. Their average was about 16 birds to each nest. If half a brood escaped, they yet multiplied in such numbers as easily to form clouds in migration. Pliny writes of their coming into Italy in such numbers, and so exhausted with their long flight, that if they sighted a sailing vessel they settled upon it by hundreds and in such numbers as to sink it. Taking into consideration the diminutive vessels of that age and the myriads of birds, this does not appear incredible. Now compare these facts with the text. Israelites were encamped on the Sinai Peninsula. The birds were in migration. The quail followed the Red Sea until they reached the point of the peninsula where they selected the narrowest place, and when the wind was with them they crossed the water. Not far from the shore arose the smoke from the campfires of the Israelites. This bewildered them, and, weary from their journey, they began to settle in confused thousands over and around the camp. Then the Israelites arose and, with the ever-ready "throw sticks," killed a certain number for every soul of the camp and spread the bodies on the sand to dry, just as Herodotus (ii. 77) records that the Egyptians always had done (see Rawlinson, Herodotus, II, for an illustration of catching and drying quail). Nature and natural history can account for this incident, with no need to call in the miraculous.

Gene Stratton-Porter

QUAILS: The oriental quail is a bird of passage, about the size of a turtledove, and nearly resembling the American partridge. Hasselquist states that it is plentiful near the shores of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, and in the deserts of Arabia; and Diodorus affirms that it is caught in immense numbers about Rhinocolura, at the southwest corner of Palestine. Burckhardt also found great quantities of them in the regions south of the Dead Sea. The flocks of quails, therefore, which came up to the camp of Israel, are entirely credible; and the miracle seems especially to have consisted in these immense flocks being directed to a particular spot, in the extreme emergency of the people by means of "a wind from the Lord," Ex 16:13; Nu 11:31; Ps 78:27.

QUAILS: The Israelites were twice relieved in their privation by a miraculous supply of quails,

    (1) in the wilderness of Sin (Ex. 16:13), and

    (2) again at Kibroth-hattaavah (q.v.), Num. 11:31.

God "rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea" (Ps. 78:27). The words in Num. 11:31, according to the Authorized Version, appear to denote that the quails lay one above another to the thickness of two cubits above the ground. The Revised Version, however, reads, "about two cubits above the face of the earth", i.e., the quails flew at this height, and were easily killed or caught by the hand. Being thus secured in vast numbers by the people, they "spread them all abroad" (11:32) in order to salt and dry them. These birds (the Coturnix vulgaris of naturalists) are found in countless numbers on the shores of the Mediterranean, and their annual migration is an event causing great excitement.

QUAIL: -The miracle of, in the Wilderness of Sin #Ex 16:13| -The miracle of, at Kibroth-hattaavah #Nu 11:31,32; Ps 105:40

QUAILS: There can be no doubt that the Hebrew word in the Pentateuch (ex 16:13; nu 11:31,32) and in the 105th Psalm, denotes the common quail, Coturnix dactylisonans . (The enormous quantity of quails taken by the Israelites has its parallel in modern times. Pliny states that they sometimes alight on vessels in the Mediterranean and sink them. Colenel Sykes states that 160,000 quails have been netted in one season on the island of Capri. --ED.) The expression "as it were two cubits (high) upon the face of the earth," (nu 11:31) refers probably to the height at which the quails flew above the ground, in their exhausted condition from their long flight. As to the enormous quantities which the least-successful Israelite is said to have taken viz. "ten homers" (i.e. eighty bushels) in the space of a night and two days, there is every reason for believing that the "homers here spoken of do not denote strictly the measure of that name but simply "a heap." The Israelites would have had little difficulty in capturing large quantities of these birds as they are known to arrive at places sometimes so completely exhausted by their flight as to be readily taken, not in nets only, but by the hand. They "spread the quails round about the camp;" this was for the purpose of drying them. The Egyptians similarly prepared these birds. The expression "quails from the sea," (nu 11:31) must not be restricted to denote that the birds came from the sea, as their starting-point, but it must be taken to show the direction from which they were coming. The quails were at the time of the event narrated in the sacred writings, on their spring journey of migration northward, It is interesting to note the time specified: "it was at even" that they began to arrive; and they no doubt continued to come all night. Many observers have recorded that the quail migrates by night.