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 hut one penny a 
pound. The crews of those vessels which in that season lie 
in the adjacent harbour, have no other food allowed them. j 
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 i! 
country. 
The only difficulty seems to he 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 j 
he a better judge of the meaning of words in the Scripture 
than we can he, and more conversant with the subject on 
which he writes, explains the passage, by saying that it merely j ; 
meant, that the Quails flew within reach of the Israelites, j 
about two cubits above the ground; which they, in fact, I 
often do when exhausted, and are knocked down by the ! 
Arabs with sticks. 
The Quail is the smallest of the poultry tribe : hut there 
is one more to he 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 I 
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 J 
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. 
