Of all the birds in Schubert songs—and there were legion: the Nachtigall, the Lerchen, the Krähe, and of course, the final Tauben of the Taubenpost, and many others—the only time Schubert actually incorporated a bird's call into his music was in his 1822 setting of Samuel Sauter's Der Wachtelschlag (The Song of the Quail) (D. 742). Given Schubert's own pantheistic spirituality, it is not hard to imagine why Sauter's lyric would appeal to him. However, the text wasn't much to work with: the words, represented by three repeated notes, that Sauter imagined bespoke the bird's spiritual qualities—Fürchte Gott! (Fear God!), Liebe Gott! (Love God!), Lobe Gott! (Praise God!), Danke Gott! (Thank God!), Bitte Gott! (Pray to God!), and Traue Gott! (Trust God!)—seem quite trite. In the event, Der Wachtelschlag is simply a sprightly little ditty in bright A major that bounces cheerfully from verse to verse without much thought. If Der Wachtelschlag is not the most inspired of Schubert's bird songs, it is at least the most literally descriptive.

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