SELA V thty, Sept. dpviryouirpa ; Vulg.
coturnix, A. V. quail) occurs in Exod. xvi. 13 ; Num. xi. 31, 32 ; Ps. cv. 4o. Quails forrn a sub division of the Tetraonida, or grouse family, being distinguished from partridges by their smaller size, finer bill, shorter tail, and the want of a red naked eyebrow and of spurs on the legs. There are several species, whereof the common, now distin guished by the name of Coturnix daetylisonans, is abundant in all the temperate regions of Europe and Western Asia, migrating to and from Africa in the proper season. Thus it crosses the Medi terranean and Black Seas twice a year in vast mul titudes ; but being by nature a bird of heavy flight, • the passage is partially conducted by way of inter mediate islands, or through Spain ; and in the East, in still greater numbers, along the Syrian desert into Arabia, forming, especially at the spring season, innumerable flocks, They alight exhausted with fatigue, and are then easily caught. Guided by these facts, commentators have been led to identify the Hebrew '6i0 with the quail ; although other species of partridges, and still more of Pterocles (` sand grouse'), abound in Western Asia ; in particular Pterodes Alehata, or Attagen, which is found, if possible, in still greater numbers on the deserts, and has been claimed by Hasselquist as the selav of Exodus. But •the present Arabic name of the quail is selwa ; and the circumstances connected with the bird in question—found on two occasions by the people of Israel in and around the camp so abundantly as to feed the whole population in the desert (Exod. xvi. 3-13), and at
Kibroth-Hattaavah, both times in the spring—are much more applicable to flights of quail alighting in an exhausted state during their periodical migra tion, than to the pterocles, which does not proceed to so great a distance, has very powerful wings, is never seen fatigued by migration, is at all times a tenant of the wilderness far from water, and which, strictly taken, is perhaps not a clean bird, all the species subsisting for the most part on larvre, beetles, and insects. We regard these consider ations as sufficient to establish the accuracy of the A. V.
Of a bird so well known no further description appears to be necessary. The providential nature of their arrival within and around the camp of the Isra.elites, in order that they might furnish meat to a murmuring people, appears from the fact of its taking place where it was not to be expected—the localities, We presume, being out of the direction of the ordinary passage ; for, had this not been the case, the dwellers in that region, and the Israelites themselves, accustomed to tend their flocks at no great distance from the spot, would have regarded the phenomenon as a well-known periodical occur rence.—C. H. S.