Coturnices.
Quails have gotten an ill name ever since Pliny accus∣ed them for eating of Hemlocks and Bear-foot; by rea∣son * 1.1whereof they breed cramps, trembling of the heart and sinews; yea though Hercules loved them above all other meats, in so much that Iolaus fetcht him out of a * 1.2swound when he was cruelly wounded by Typhon, with the smell of a Quail; yet with much eating of them he fell into the falling-evil, which ever since hath been termed Hercules's sickness. Avicen thinketh that they * 1.3bring cramps not onely by feeding on Helleborus and Hemlocks, but also from a natural inborn property. * 1.4Monardus writeth thus of them; I allow not the flesh of Quails neither in the Spring nor Winter, not because the ancient Fathers of Physick do condemn them; but because reason is against them. For in the Spring and Summer time they are too dry, engendring rather me∣lancholy then bloud: In Autumn and Winter they are too moist; yea though they be fat, yet are they of small nourishment, causing loathing of stomack, and corrupti∣on of meat. Baptista Fiera, Amatus Lusitanus, yea Avicen, Rhasis, Isaac and Galen are of the same judge∣ment; only Arnoldus de Villa nova in his Commentary upon the Salern School, affirmeth them in some Coun∣tries