"Man did eat angels' food: He sent them meat to the full.
"He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven; and by His power He brought in the south wind.
"He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea" (Ps. lxxviii. 23-27).
If the ordinary interpretation of selâv by "Quail" be accepted, the description is exactly correct. The Quails fly in vast flocks, and, being weak-winged birds, never fly against the direction of the wind. They will wait for days until the wind blows in the required direction, and will then take wing in countless multitudes; so that in an hour or two a spot on which not a Quail could be seen is covered with them.
On account of their short wings, they never rise to any great height, even when crossing the sea, while on land they fly at a very low elevation, merely skimming over the ground, barely a yard or "two cubits high upon the face of the earth."
Moreover, the flesh of the Quail is peculiarly excellent, and would be a great temptation to men who had passed so long a time without eating animal food. Another corroboration of the identity of the Quail and the Selâv is to be found in the mode in which the flesh is prepared at the present day. As soon as the birds have arrived, they are captured in vast multitudes, on account of their weariness. Many are consumed at once, but great numbers are preserved for future use by being split and laid out to dry in the sun, precisely as the Israelites are said to have spread out the Selavim "all abroad for themselves round about the camp."
Accepting, therefore, the Selâv and Quail to be identical, we may proceed to the description of the bird.
It is small, plump, and round-bodied, with the head set closely on the shoulders. Owing to this peculiarity of form, it has its Arab name, which signifies plumpness or fatness. The wings are pressed closely to the body, and the tail is pointed, very short, and directed downwards, so that it almost appears to be absent, and the bird seems to be even more plump than really is the case.
Several modes of capturing these birds are still practised in the East, and were probably employed, not only on the two occasions mentioned in Exodus and Numbers, but on many others of which the Scriptural narrative takes no notice. One very simple plan is, for the hunters to select a spot on which the birds are assembled, and to ride or walk round them in a large circle, or rather in a constantly diminishing spiral. The birds are by this process driven closer and closer together, until at the last they are packed in such masses that a net can be thrown over them, and a great number captured in it.