Note 417 — Chapter VIII

The same fable is also related in a different way: Jove cohabits with Latona, and subsequently forces her sister, Asterien, who is, in pity, changed by the gods into a quail. Jove becomes an eagle to catch her; the gods change the quail into a stone—(cfr. the stories of Indras as a cuckoo and Rambhâ, of Indras as a cock and Ahalyâ. It is a popular superstition that quails, like the crane, when they travel, let little stones fall in order to recognise on their return the places by which they passed the first time)—which lies for a long time under water, till by the prayer of Latona it is taken out.