474 Mr. D. CiiiTutliers on the Arabian Ostvich. [Ibis, 



special feature except small ranges of hills and dry wadi- 

 beds, the Ostrich used to roam. Our knowledge of it depends 

 on reliable witnesses, such as British officers and East India 

 (Company officials. By curious chance, this region was 

 better known two centuries ago than it is to-day. For a 

 brief period in the early 18th century the overland Syrian 

 desert route became a favourite one for officers and others in 

 the service of the East India Company, and we have many 

 valuable diaries of journeys acconn)lished between Aleppo 

 and Basra. 



The last record of the Ostrich in the neighbourhood of the 

 Euphrates was in 171'7, when Olivier mentions them in 

 the desert v/est of Rehaba, i. e. about 23 miles due south of 

 Deir ez Zor. 



In 1789, Major John Taylor, of the *' Bombay Establish- 

 ment," saw "several ostriches and found their eggs lying on 

 the bare ground,'^ 30 December, just south of the Wadi 

 Hauran, half-way between it and the villnge of Kubaisa 

 (11 miles west of Hit). 



In 178 J, Eyles Irwin "in the service of the East India C!o.,'' 

 whilst traversing the desert route from Aleppo to Baghdad 

 found a nest {2ii March) at a point roughly half-way between 

 Palmyra and the Euphrates, near the watering called Jubb 

 Ghanam. 



Ten years earlier. General Sir Eyre C'oote saw Ostriches on 

 24 February two days' east of Palmyra, and he records the 

 cupola of a tomb close to Taiybe (a small village 50 miles 

 north-east of Palmyra) as being adorned with Ostrich's eggs. 

 He also found an egg {in situ) in the same locality. This is 

 probably the most northern record of the Ostrich^ a latitude 

 corresponding to Malta and Tangier. 



In 1750, Bartholomew Plaisted, also of the East India 

 Company, saw on *J July an Ostrich in the same locality 

 where Taylor had found them — near the mouth of the Wadi 

 Hauran. 



As to their existence on the Lower Euphrates, we only 

 have the record of the Portuguese traveller, Pedro Teixeira, 

 who in 1(104 found their feathers two days' west of Basra. 



