QUAILS

The oriental quail is a bird of passage, about the size of a turtledove, and nearly resembling the American partridge. Hasselquist states that it is plentiful near the shores of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, and in the deserts of Arabia; and Diodorus affirms that it is caught in immense numbers about Rhinocolura, at the southwest corner of Palestine. Burckhardt also found great quantities of them in the regions south of the Dead Sea. The flocks of quails, therefore, which came up to the camp of Israel, are entirely credible; and the miracle seems especially to have consisted in these immense flocks being directed to a particular spot, in the extreme emergency of the people by means of "a wind from the Lord," Ex 16:13; Nu 11:31; Ps 78:27.

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Quails. Quails
The Israelites were twice relieved in their privation by a miraculous supply of quails, (1) in the wilderness of Sin (Ex. 16:13), and (2) again at Kibroth-hattaavah (q.v.), Num. 11:31. God “rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea” (Ps. 78:27). The words in Num. 11:31, according to the Authorized Version, appear to denote that the quails lay one above another to the thickness of two cubits above the ground. The Revised Version, however, reads, “about two cubits above the face of the earth”, i.e., the quails flew at this height, and were easily killed or caught by the hand. Being thus secured in vast numbers by the people, they “spread them all abroad” (11:32) in order to salt and dry them.

These birds (the Coturnix vulgaris of naturalists) are found in countless numbers on the shores of the Mediterranean, and their annual migration is an event causing great excitement.