Book 9
47
But with respect to the quail Aristotle says, The quail is a migratory bird, with cloven feet, and he does not make a nest, but lies in the dust; and he covers over his hole with sticks for fear of hawks; and then the hen lays her eggs in the hole. But Alexander the Myndian says, in the second book of his treatise on Animals, The female quail has a thin neck, not having under its chin the same black feathers which the male has. And when it is dissected it is found not to have a large crop, but it has a large heart with three lobes; it has also its liver and its gall-bladder united in its intestines, but it has but a small spleen, and one which is not easily perceived; and its testicles are under its liver, like those of the common fowl. And concerning their origin, Phanodemus, in the second book of his History of Attica, says:— When Erysichthon saw the island of Delos, which was by the ancients called Ortygia, because of the numerous flocks of quails which came over the sea and settled in that island as one which afforded them good shelter . . . And Eudoxus the Cnidian, in the first book of his Description of the Circuit of the Earth, says that the Phœnicians sacrifice quails to Hercules, because Hercules, the son of Asteria and Jupiter, when on his way towards Libya, was slain by Typhon and restored to life by Iolaus, who brought a quail to him and put it to his nose, and the smell revived him. For when he was alive he was, says Eudoxus, very partial to that bird.
