CURASSOW(Cracinae), a group of gallinaceous birds forming one of the sub-families of Cracidae, the species of which are among the largest and most splendid of the game birds of South America, where they may be said to represent the pheasants and grouse of the Old World. They are large, heavy birds, many of them rivalling the turkey in size, with short wings, long and broad tail, and strong bill. In common with the family to which they belong, they have the hind toe of the foot placed on a level with the others, thus resembling the pigeons, and unlike the majority of gallinaceous birds. With the exception of a single species found north of Panama, the curassows are confined to the tropical forests of South America, east of the Andes, and not extending south of Paraguay. They live in small flocks, and are arboreal in their habits, only occasionally descending to the ground, while always roosting and building their nests on the branches of trees. Their nests are neat structures, made of slender branches interlaced with stems of grass, and lined internally with leaves. They feed on fruits, seeds, and insects. They are said to be domesticated in several parts of South America, and Bates states that when journeying up the Amazon he was amused “at the excessive and almost absurd tameness of a fine curassow turkey (Mitua tuberosa)f which ran about one of the planter’s houses in which he happened to stay. Large numbers of these birds were, according to Temminck, brought to Holland from Dutch Guiana towards the end of last century, and got so completely acclimatized and domesticated as to breed in confinement like ordinary poultry; but the establishments in w hich these were kept were broken up during the troubles that followed on the French Revolution. Their flesh is said to ...

CURATE (from the Latin curare, to take care of), properly a presbyter who has the cure of souls within a parish, being the Latin equivalent of the Greek parochus. The term curate is used in this general sense in certain rubrics of the Anglican Prayer Book, in which it is applied equally to rectors and vicars as to perpetual curates. In a more limited sense it is applied in the Church of England to the incumbent of a parish who has no endowment of tithes, as distinguished from a perpetual vicar, who has an endowment of small tithes, which are for that reason sometimes styled vicarial tithes. The origin of such unendowed curacies is traceable to the fact that benefices were sometimes granted to religious houses pleno jure, and with liberty for them to provide for the cure; and when such appropriations were transferred to lay persons, being unable to serve themselves, the appropriators were required to nominate a clerk in full orders to the ordinary for his licence to serve the cure. Such curates, being not removable at the pleasure of the appropriators, but only on due revocation of the licence of the ordinary, came to be entitled perpetual curates. The term “curate” in the present day is almost exclusively used to signify a clerk who is assistant to an incumbent; and a clerk in deacon’s orders is competent to be licensed by a bishop to the office of such assistant curate. The consequence of this misuse of the term “curate” has been that the title of “perpetual curate” has fallen into desuetude in the Anglican Church, some inconvenience being found to result from the indiscriminate application of the term “curate,” in the case of perpetual curacies, both to the incumbent of the parish and to his assistant curate, and an Act of Parliament (31 and 32 Viet, ...

CURAÇOA, or Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean Sea, lying off the north coast of Venezuela, in 12° N. lat., 69° W. long. It is 40 miles in length from N.W. to S.E., and 10 in average breadth; the area is 212 square miles. The island is hilly and deficient in water, being wholly dependent upon the rains; yet, owing to the industry of the Dutch planters, considerable quantities of sugar, cotton, indigo, tobacco, and maize are raised. A peculiar variety of orange, the Citrus Λurantium curassuviensis, grows abundantly, and furnishes the distinguishing ingredient in the liqueur which takes its name from the island. The principal export is salt. The shores, which are bold, are in some places deeply indented, and present several harbours, the chief of which is Santa Anna, on the south-west side of the island. The entrance to this, which is narrow, is protected by Fort Amsterdam and other batteries; but the harbour itself is large and secure, and is the port of the chief town Curaçoa, or Willemstad. The population in 1875 amounted to 23,972, about one-third being emancipated negroes. All belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, except about 2000 Protestants and 1000 Jews. The island was settled by the Spaniards about 1527, and was captured by the Dutch in 1634. It was taken by the English in 1798 and again in 1806, but was restored in 1814 to the Dutch, in whose possession it has since remained.