The learned Bochart denies this prodigy.[XX-28] He affirms that Hercules was subject to epileptic attacks, and that, during a fit, they caused him to smell a quail, whose odour quickly cured him.[XX-29] The Phœnicians insisted that he was quite dead, and they all cried out, “A miracle!”[XX-30] The reader must decide between them and Bochart. In the Desert the Israelites fed on quails;[XX-31] and this food, reserved for them by Divine goodness, caused no discomfort among the fugitive tribes. The Greeks served them on their tables with partridges:[XX-32] they raised them in aviaries, and eat them all the year round.[XX-33] Aristotle speaks most highly of them, and does not attribute to them any dangerous property.[XX-34] However, quails were banished from all Roman tables: they were no longer carefully fattened:[XX-35] they were cursed, and accused of causing epilepsy in those who partook of their fatal and seductive flesh.[XX-36] The authority of Galen confirmed this strange prejudice,[XX-37] and these innocent birds, having lost all reputation in Italy, no doubt easily consoled themselves for the happy ostracism which delivered them from a too expensive glory. At all events, it is probable that Rome had wickedly calumniated quails; two skilful men, devoted to the cause, undertook to defend them: they were called Hippolochus and Antiphanus.[XX-38] Their eloquent pleadings caused a sensation; the epicureans were moved, and some of these birds were recalled, fattened, and roasted. Quails, like cocks and partridges, seem born to fight to excess.[XX-39] The Grecians encouraged their warlike ardour, and threw them into the arena, where they contemplated their furious attacks with as much pleasure as they experienced at the sight of gladiators murdering each other in order to amuse them.[XX-40] Solon--the wise Solon--required that young men should be trained to courage at the school of these bold champions, and learn from them to despise danger, pain, and death.[XX-41] We know that sensibility was little thought of in the plan of education formed by the great legislator. Long after him, however, the Areopagus gave a dreadful proof of this, by condemning to death a little boy who had amused himself by pulling out the eyes of all the quails unfortunate enough to fall into his hands. This precocious monster was too promising.[XX-42] THE THRUSH. The immortal author of the Iliad did not disdain, it is said, to compose a poem in praise of thrushes. These verses were so beautiful that the Greeks learned them all by heart in their infancy.[XX-43] The singular love of the ancients for this bird renders these poetical honours tolerably probable. More than once Comus has borrowed the lyre of Apollo.