The Israelites had just passed the Red Sea, and had begun to experience a foretaste of the privations which they were to expect in the desert through which they had to pass. Passing northwards in their usual migrations, the birds would come to the coast of the Red Sea, and there would wait until a favourable wind enabled them to cross the water. The south-east wind afforded them just the very assistance which they needed, and they would naturally take advantage of it. It is remarkable how closely the Scriptural narrative agrees with the habits of the Quail, the various passages, when compared together, precisely coinciding with the character of the bird. In Exod. xvi. 13 it is mentioned that "at even the quails came up and covered the camp." Nocturnal flight is one of the characteristics of the Quail. When possible, they invariably fly by night, and in this manner escape many of the foes which would make great havoc among their helpless columns if they were to fly by day. The identity of the Selâv with the common Quail is now seen to be established. In the first place, we have the name still surviving in the Arabic language. Next, the various details of the Scriptural narrative point so conclusively to the bird, that even if we were to put aside the etymological corroboration, we could have but little doubt on the subject. There is not a detail which is not correct. The gregarious instinct of the bird, which induces it to congregate in vast numbers; its habit of migration; its inability to fly against the wind, and the necessity for it to await a favourable breeze; its practice of flying by night, and its custom of merely skimming over the surface of the ground; the ease with which it is captured; the mode of preserving by drying in the sun, and the proverbial delicacy of its flesh, are characteristics which all unite in the Quail. * * * * * Before closing our account of the Quail, it will be as well to devote a short space to the nature of the mode by which the Israelites were twice fed. Commentators who were unacquainted with the natural history of the bird have represented the whole occurrence as a miraculous one, and have classed it with the division of the Red Sea and of the Jordan, with the various plagues by which Pharaoh was induced to release the Israelites, and with many other events which we are accustomed to call miracles. [Illustration: birds]