Exodus 16:13

QUAILS AND MANNA GIVEN, Exodus 16:13-21.

13. The quails came up, (from the south, across the Red Sea,) and covered the camp Fell down among the tents . The bird here mentioned is undoubtedly the common quail, the word שׂלו being derived from a root signifying “fat,” from the round, plump, fat body of the quail . (Gesen . )

The same bird is spoken of in Numbers xi as coming to the camp in vast numbers just a year from this time an immense flock, which passed over the encampment at a height of two cubits from the ground, and spread a day’s journey on both sides. It was now the last of April, when countless flocks of these birds migrate northward from the Upper Nile country, crossing the Red Sea and the Sinai wilderness, and appearing in immense numbers in the Mediterranean coasts and islands. They begin to return southward in September, when they are caught in great numbers with nets, and even with the hand, at their roosting places, in the neighbourhood of Constantinople and on the AEgean Islands; and they pass over Alexandria in November. Ancient and modern naturalists and travellers give us most marvellous accounts of the numbers of these birds, and of the great quantities that are captured at the migrating seasons. All the Archipelago islands are at these times covered with them. At Capri, near Naples, they were once taken in such numbers as to afford the bishop there a large part of his revenue, who was hence called “bishop of quails.” Varro and Pliny relate that in their time they arrived on the Italian shores in such numbers, and settled by night on the sails and rigging of coasting vessels in such masses, as to overturn them! (Plin., Hist. Nat., 10: 33.)

They reach the coasts by night, wearied with their long flight, and are then very easily taken, being knocked down with sticks, or even caught in the hand. (See many quotations in Knobel.) One of these vast flocks, on their annual northward migration from Upper Egypt or Nubia, was providentially directed to the Israelitish encampment, and, coming across the sea, arrived exhausted in the evening, and dropped among and around the tents in the desert of Murkha.