In reality, there is scarcely anything of a miraculous character about the event, and none seems to have been claimed for it. The Quails were not created at the moment expressly for the purpose of supplying the people with food, nor were they even brought from any great distance. They were merely assisted in the business on which they were engaged--namely, their migration or customary travel from south to north, and waiting on the opposite side of the narrow sea for a south-east wind. That such a wind should blow was no miracle. The Quails expected it to blow, and without it they could not have crossed the sea. That it was made to blow earlier than might have been the case is likely enough, but that is the extent of the miraculous character of the event. THE RAVEN. The Raven tribe plentiful in Palestine--The Raven and the Dove--Elijah and the Ravens--Desert-loving habits of the Raven--Notions of the old commentators--Ceremonial use of the Raven--Return of the Ravens--Cunning of the bird--Nesting-places of the Raven--The magpie and its character--The starling--Its introduction into Palestine. It is more than probable that, while the Hebrew word _oreb_ primarily signifies the bird which is so familiar to us under the name of RAVEN, it was also used by the Jews in a much looser sense, and served to designate any of the Corvidæ, or Crow tribe, such as the raven itself, the crow, the rook, the jackdaw, and the like. We will first take the word in its restricted sense, and then devote a brief space to its more extended signification. As might be expected from the cosmopolitan nature of the Raven, it is very plentiful in Palestine, and even at the present time is apparently as firmly established as it was in the days when the various Scriptural books were written. There are few birds which are more distinctly mentioned in the Holy Scriptures than the Raven, though the passages in which its name occurs are comparatively few. It is the first bird which is mentioned in the Scriptures, its name occurring in Gen. viii. 7: "And it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made; "And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth."