The ancient Athenians kept this bird merely for the sport of fighting with each other, as game-cocks do, and never ate the flesh. The Quail was that wild fowl which God thought proper to send to the chosen people of Israel as a sustenance for them in the desert.
The Chinese Quail is a beautiful little bird, and is often kept in cages in China, for the singular purpose, as it is said, of warming people’s hands in winter; as taking the soft, warm body of the bird in the hand diffuses through it an agreeable warmth. It is also very pugnacious, and is employed in fighting.
THE AMERICAN QUAIL, (Ortyx Virginianus,)
Is larger than the Common Quail, and is something between a Quail and a Partridge.
The Californian Quail (O. Californicus) is distinguished by its possession of a curious crest or tuft of feathers on the crown of the head.