298 THE BUSTARD. 



traveller, 5 * a foreigner, whose words we will, therefore, trans- 

 late. There is, says he, a small island off the coast of Egypt, 

 where these birds usually alight in the Autumn, on which 

 they are taken in such quantities, that after having been 

 stripped of their feathers, and dried in the burning sands for 

 about a quarter of an hour, they are worth but one penny a 

 pound. The crews of those vessels which in that season lie 

 in the adjacent harbour, have no other food allowed them. 

 The object of the Israelites, therefore, in spreading them round 

 the camp, was to dry them, a mode of preparing fish and 

 camels' flesh, still practised by the Arabs, in the very same 

 country. 



The only difficulty seems to be in their being so thickly 

 strewed as to form a solid mass of " two cubits from the 

 face of the earth." But Josephus, who must be allowed to 

 be a better judge of the meaning of words in the Scripture 

 than we can be, and more conversant with the subject on 

 which he writes, explains the passage, by saying that it merely 

 meant, that the Quails flew within reach of the Israelites, 

 about two cubits above the ground; which they, in fact, 

 often do when exhausted, and are knocked down by the 

 Arabs with sticks. 



The Quail is the smallest of the poultry tribe : but there 

 is one more to be mentioned, forming the connecting link 

 between this and the last of the gallinaceous order, by far 

 the largest of the family. We mean the Bustard, of whose 

 courage in attacking a man and horse we have already 

 spoken .f The Bustard can fly, but its usual motion is on 

 foot, running with such speed as often to rival a greyhound. 

 Formerly they were common on our plains, and in the open 

 country of England; but, as enclosures have taken place, 

 they have gradually disappeared, and are now supposed to 

 be, in this country, an extinct species. 



In Norfolk it is said that there are a few still remaining : 

 the last authentic instance is that of a gamekeeper at Cress- 

 wall, near Mildenhall, Norfolk, who took a hen Bustard in a 



* Maillet. t See p. 284. 



