“Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails.”—Troilus and Cressida, Act v. Sc. 1.
Even at the present day this sort of amusement is common in some parts of Italy, and still more so in China. In Italy, the practice is to feed up two quails very highly, and then place them opposite to each other at the end of a long table, throwing between them a few grains of millet-seed to make them quarrel. At first they merely threaten, lowering the head and ruffling all the neck feathers, but at length they rush on furiously, striking with their bills, erecting their heads, and rising upon their spurs, until one is forced to yield.
In Antony and Cleopatra (Act ii. Sc. 3), Antonius says of Cæsar:—
“His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
Beat mine inhoop’d at odds.”
QUAIL-FIGHTING.
That there was some foundation for this assertion, we may gather from the following extract from North’s “Plutarch”:—
“With Antonius there was a soothsayer or astronomer in Egypt that coulde cast a figure and judge of men’s nativities, to tell them what should happen to them. He told Antonius plainly that his fortune (which of itself was excellent good and very great) was altogether blemished and obscured by Cæsar’s fortune; and therefore he counselled him utterly to leave his company, and get him as farre from him as he coulde. Howsoever it was, the event ensuing proved the Egyptian’s words true; for it is said that as often as they drew lots for pastime, who should have anything, or whether they played at dice, Antonius always lost. Oftentimes when they were disposed to see cock-fights, or quails that were taught to fight one with another, Cæsar’s cocks or quails did ever overcome. The which spited Antonius in his mind, although he made no outward show of it, and therefore he believed the Egyptian the better.”
In Kircher’s “Musurgia” the note of this bird is thus faithfully rendered[125]:—