Word: bustards
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Once upon a time (1933), tne U.S. Government sent George Howard Earle III to be its Minister in Austria. He was a sociable man and met everybody. Invited to go hunting on a large Austrian estate, he accepted; he shot bustards there. The great bustard (Otis tarda) is Europe's largest land bird and bears a superficial resemblance to the turkey. It has a phlegmatic temperament and is tardy on the takeoff. Hardly anybody needs a telescopic sight to hit a bustard...
...when the Democratic Party picked George Earle as its candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, the Republicans opposed Earle on his bustard-shooting record and produced a supporting picture (see cut). Earle's hunting experiences became a major campaign issue. Columns were written on the sporting ethics of shooting so slow a bird as the bustard. One of the columns, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, quoted "Dr. Franz Muzzleloader ... a recognized authority on the bustards" as saying...
...Visiting hunters, Earle among them . . . don fantastic costumes intended to lull the bustard into believing that nothing more harmful than a peasant is in the neighborhood. . . . Now a peasant, when he would like a bite of bustard on a Sunday, goes into a field, grabs one by the tail, wrings its neck and that's all there is to it. They don't go out as if they were on their way to a fancy-dress ball." The Democratic Philadelphia Record answered in an editorial gloweringly entitled: "Speaking of Bustards...
...bustards (and George Earle) have been practically forgotten in Pennsylvania. Last week, however, the Austrian Government had bustards on its mind. The Socialists had passed a law nationalizing hunting in the province of Carinthia. Large estates were to be subdivided into small parcels for the season, and one huntsman assigned to each by the authorities. Everyone, said the Socialists, deserved a chance in these hard times to shoot himself a bustard or a buck...
...brought an unlooked-for diversion. Higher than bustard ever flew, the wings of a DC-3 soared up from the south, circled Hafar-el-Ats's cool palms, slid down the desert air, rolled to a dusty stop on the hot sand. Out stepped a group of Americans led by bouncing, balding Major General Ralph Royce, retiring U.S.A.A.F. chief in the Middle East, and his affable successor, Brigadier General Benjamin F. Giles...