BEEF-EAT2R, Buphaga, a genus of birds, of the order insessores, tribe conirostres, to which the name ox-pecker is also and more correctly given. The beef-eaters have short bills, square at the base, and rather swollen towards the point. They are accustomed to sit upon the backs of buffaloes, camels, and other large animals, and to feed upon the larva; of gadflies, which they find in their hides. They are exclusively African. One of the species is the buffalo bird of South Africa. Livingstone mentions that the sight of the bird being much more acute than that of the buffalo, it is much more easily alarmed by the approach of danger; but the buffaloes always begin to look about them when the birds rise from their backs.
is a light and pleasant article of diet, obtained from the flesh of the ox. It is generally prepared by placing the meat (as lean as possible) in cold water, which is gradually heated, and then allowed to simmer for two hours or so; but the best method appears to be to commence by chopping the meat small, adding the cold water, and rapidly heating so as to bring it to boil. A little salt is then added to suit the taste. Either process. by commencing with cold water, succeeds in dissolving out of the meat the savory natural juices which it contains to the extent of about one eighth of its weight. Occasionally, hard-toasted bread, in fragments, is added to the tea just before' being partaken of, which imparts to it some of the nutritious qualities of the bread. In using the beef-tea, the bread may or may not be eaten. The popular notion is, that the beef-tea contains all the nourishing constituents of the entire amount of meat employed in its preparation; but this is erroneous, es much nutritious matter is resident in the seven eighths of the original meat, left as residuary fleshy fiber, though the latter will, no doubt, prove of difficult digestion. The chemical constituents of beef-lea are gelatin; albuminous waiter; krcatine, a substance resembling theine, the essential principle of tea and coffee; e.rtractire matters (osmazome), to which the tea owes most of its odor and flavor, besides a part of its nutritious qualities; lactic acid; salts; a little fat; saccharins matter, and water. Beef-tea is highly palatable, and from its very easy digestion, it is
recommended to invalids and convalescents. Mutton, treated in a similar manner, yields a broth or tea which is not so easily digested, and is hurtful to persons of weak 6tomuch, especially if the fat be not skimmed off from the liquid. A knuckle of veal affords a similar broth or tea; but it is not so light as beef-tea, and, moreover, gelatin izes on cooling. A. broth or tea prepared from a young chicken is, of all deeoctions of 21/11111/11 matter, the most readily digested, and is specially suitable for invalids, where rritability of the stomach exists.
See CASUA RINA.
a name generally given to certain dome-shaped buildings in Ireland. which are believed to be among the oldest architecture remains hi that country. They are round edifices. of no great size or height, built without cement, of long thin stones aiTanged iu horizontal layers, the one slightly overlapping the other. and so gradually converging, until they meet at the top. The doorway. which is square-headed, is soinewhat narrower at the top than at the bottom. as In Egyptian architecture. Deellive-linses are of two I:lads—single or clustered. The former are generally found beside ancient and are stipposed to have beett thodtvelling-platces of the priests; the latter, which are often underground, show two or more hive-shaped chambers, con nected by a passage or gallery, or opening from a larger central apartment, which is also hive-shaped. Irish antiquaries refer the beehive-houses generally to the period before the Auglo-Nortnan invasion of the island, in the 12th c., and claim for some of them an antiquity as high as the 7th and 8th centuries. Ruins of single beehive-houses are found in the western isles of Scotland; and some of the "Picts' houses," or "earth-houses," of the e. coast, seem to resemble the subterranean aggregated beehive-houses of Ireland.