companies are situated, is becoming a considerable place, and may be expected ultimately to supersede the Turkish town. The terminus of the Constantinople line of telegraph, which furnishes an alternative means of communication between England and India, is at Fao, near the mouth of the Euphrates, and at the distance of about 60 miles below Bussorah. A good deal of attention has of late years been directed to Bussorah in connection with the proposal for a railway to unite the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf, either by way of the Tigris or Euphrates valley. In no case, however, would it be desirable to establish the terminus of such a railway at Bussorah, where the climate would prove most destructive to European life. The most eligible site for the terminus would be either at Kowait on the sea-coast, 50 miles south of Bussorah, or at the Persian town of Mohamreh, where the Karun Paver disembogues into the Euphrates. Quite recently the Turkish Govern ment has decided to dissociate the Bussorah district, with its dependencies, from Baghdad, and to attach it to the newly-created province of Arabia, the headquarters of the pashalic being established at El Hassa; but such an
arrangement is not likely to be permanent.(h. c. b.)
BUSTARD (corrupted from the Latin Avis tarda, though the application of the epithet[1] is not easily understood), the largest British land-fowl, and the Otis tarda of Linnaeus, which formerly frequented the champaign parts of Great Britain from East Lothian to Dorsetshire, but of which the native race is now extirpated. Its existence in the northern locality just named rests upon Sibbald s authority (circa 1684), and though Hector Boethius (1526) unmistakably described it as an inhabitant of the Merse, no later writer than the former has adduced any evidence in favour of its Scottish domicile. The last examples of the native race were probably two killed in 1838 near Swaffham, in Norfolk, a district in which for some years previously a few hen- birds of the species, the remnant of a plentiful stock, had maintained their existence, though no cock-bird had latterly been known to bear them company. In Suffolk, where the neighbourhood of Icklingham formed its chief haunt, an end came to the race in 1832; on the wolds of Yorkshire about 1826, or perhaps a little later ; and on those of Lincolnshire about the same time. Of Wiltshire, Montagu, writing in 1813, says that none had been seen in their favourite haunts on Salisbury Plain for the last two or three years. In Dorsetshire there is no evidence of an indigenous example having occurred since that date, nor in Hampshire nor Sussex within the present century. From other English counties, as Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, and Berkshire, it disappeared without note being taken of the event, and the direct cause or causes of its extermination can only be inferred from what, on testimony cited by Mr Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk, ii. pp. 1-42), is known to have led to the same result in Norfolk and Suffolk. In the latter the extension of plantations rendered the country unfitted for a bird whose shy nature could not brook the growth of covert that might shelter a foe, and in the former the introduction of improved agricultural implements, notably the corn-drill and the horse-hoe, led to the discovery and generally the destruction of every nest, for the bird s chosen breeding-place was in wide fields " brecks, " as they are locally called, of winter-corn. Since the extirpa tion of the native race the Bustard is known to Great Britain only by occasional wanderers, straying most likely from the open country of Champagne or Saxony, and occurring in one part or another of the United Kingdom some two or three times every three or four years, and chiefly in midwinter.
An adult male will measure nearly four feet from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail, and its wings have an expanse of eight feet or more, its weight varying (possibly through age) from 22 to 32 pounds. This last was that of one which occurred to the younger Naumann, the best biographer of the bird (Vorjd Deirtschlands, vii. p. 12), who, however, stated in 1834 that he was assured of the former existence of examples which had attained the mass of 35 or 38 pounds. The female is considerably smaller. Com pared with most other birds frequenting open places the Bustard has disproportionately short legs, yet the bulk of its body renders it a conspicuous and stately object, and when on the wing, to which it readily takes, its flight is not inferior in majesty to that of an Eagle. The bill is of moderate length, but, owing to the exceedingly flat head of the bird, appears longer than it really is. The neck, especially of the male in the breeding-season, is thick, and the tail, in the same sex at that time of year, is generally carried in an upright position, being, however, in the paroxysms of courtship turned forwards, while the head and neck are simultaneously reverted along the back, the wings are lowered, and their shorter feathers erected. In this posture, which has been admirably portrayed by Mr Wolf (Zool. Sketches, pi. 45), the bird presents a very strange appearance, for the tail, head, and neck are almost buried amid the upstanding feathers before named, and the breasts are protruded to a remarkable extent. The Bustard is of a pale grey on the neck and white beneath, but the back is beautifully barred with russet and black, while in the male a band of deep tawny-brown in some examples approaching a claret-colour descends from either shoulder and forms a broad gorget on the breast. The secondaries and greater wing-coverts are white, con trasting vividly, as the bird flies, with the black primaries. Both sexes have the ear-coverts somewhat elongated whence doubtless is derived the name Otis (Gr. WTI S) and the male is adorned with a tuft of long, white, bristly plumes, springing from each side of the base of the man dible. The food of the Bustard consists of almost any of the plants natural to the open country it loves, but in winter it will readily forage on those which are grown by man, and especially coleseed and similar green crops. To this vegetable diet much animal matter is added when occasion offers, and from an earth-worm to a field-mouse little that lives and moves seems to come amiss to its appetite.
them than the Bustard, much remains to be determined with regard to its economy. A moot point, which will most likely always remain undecided, is whether the British race was migratory or not, though that such is the habit of the species in most parts of the European continent is beyond dispute. Equally uncertain as yet is the question whether it is polygamous or not the evidence being perhaps in favour of its having that nature. But one of the most singular properties of the bird is the presence in some of the fully-grown males of a pouch or gular sack, opening under the tongue. This extraordinary feature, first discovered by James Douglas, a Scotch physician, and made known by Albin in 1740, though its existence was hinted by Sir Thomas Browne sixty years before, if not by the Emperor Frederick II., has been found wanting in examples that, from the exhibition of all the outward marks of virility, were believed to be thoroughly mature ; and as to its function and mode of development judgment had best be suspended, with the understanding that the old supposition of its serving as a receptacle whence the bird might supply itself or its companions with water in dry places must be deemed to be wholly untenable. The structure of this pouch the existence of which in some
examples has been well established, is, however, variable ;- ↑ It may be open to doubt whether tarda is here an adjective. Several of the medireval naturalists used it as a substantive.
