The first mention of the Selâv occurs in Exod. xvi. Only a few days after the Israelites had passed the Red Sea, they began to complain of the desert land into which Moses had led them, and openly said that they wished they had never left the land of their slavery, where they had plenty to eat. According to His custom, pitying their narrow-minded and short-sighted folly, the natural result of the long servitude to which they had been subject, the Lord promised to send both bread and flesh-meat. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, "I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. [Illustration: THE QUAIL.] "And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp" (ver. 11-13). The next passage records a similar circumstance, which occurred about a year afterwards, when the Israelites were tired of eating nothing but the manna, and again wished themselves back in Egypt. "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" (Numb. xi. 31, 32). The last passage in which Quails are mentioned occurs in the Psalms. In Ps. cv. are enumerated the various wonders done on behalf of the Israelites, and among them is specially mentioned this gift of the Quails and manna. "The people asked, and He brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven" (ver. 40). "He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, "And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven. "Man did eat angels' food: He sent them meat to the full. "He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven; and by His power He brought in the south wind. "He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea" (Ps. lxxviii. 23-27). If the ordinary interpretation of _selâv_ by "Quail" be accepted, the description is exactly correct. The Quails fly in vast flocks, and, being weak-winged birds, never fly against the direction of the wind. They will wait for days until the wind blows in the required direction, and will then take wing in countless multitudes; so that in an hour or two a spot on which not a Quail could be seen is covered with them.