100 WILD LIFI-: I.\ CHINA. 



is too heavy to be vei"\' rapid in his movements. Old writers 

 curiously contradict each other on this point. Some say that 

 the bustard used to be run down by greyhounds, even their 

 great speed being taxed to the utmost. Others, and these are 

 probably correct, say that it neverattempts escape by running 

 but takes to flight at once. Its Latin name Otis tarda, the slow, 

 or lazy bustard, is sufficently characteristic. Indeed even our 

 English name comes from the Latin through the French, 

 though there must have been a British or Saxon name besides. 



So great is the bustard's aversion from man that there 

 are several cases on record of attacks made by the bird on the 

 human biped. In one of these the bustard was captured and 

 tamed. It has never been my good fortune to meet with a 

 live bustard in any of my wanderings, and in consequence 

 all that is said here is second-hand. But I am told that in 

 favourable seasons bustards are to be seen down bj' the sea- 

 wall, and it is quite a common thing for them to be found in 

 our Shanghai markets during the winter, figuring in the lists 

 as wild turkeys. Nature has marked the bustard much as she 

 has marked the quail, the partridge, and other birds living as 

 a rule on the ground. The colouring is as protective as it is 

 delightful to all who look at it with an eye to the appreciation 

 of its purpose. Barred browns and black cover the upper 

 parts, the under, as usual, being much lighter. The only 

 exceptions that I know of to this rule of dark above, light 

 below, are to be found in one or two of the plovers, the 

 golden plover being one. The male bustard has some loose 

 ornamental feathers emerging below the eye and hanging 

 graceful!}' down the neck. The little bustard is a somewhat 

 handsomer bird, with a very effective black and white bib or 

 collarette, but is not, I think, found in China at all. McQueen's 

 bustard which is much smaller, and has almost a mane of 

 ornamental feathers, is common in western Asia, but not I think 

 so far east as this. I should be quite prepared to learn that the 

 Tartars and probablj' even the northern Chinese are accus- 

 tomed to hunt the bustard by the help of falcons and trained 

 hawks. In this neighbourhood, I expect, our market supplies 

 are trapped in some way. 



Turning to the rail family and its friends we come to a 

 variety of birds interesting in a number of ways, but not birds 

 that provide much sport. They are difficult to flush but easy 

 to shoot, and for this reason are usually left alone. Our 

 common landrail or corncrake is not numbered amongst the 

 avian family of China, the bird which to my boyish mind was 

 "the bird-that-never-slept," for it never seemed to matter 

 what time I awoke in the night, the "crake-crake," "crake- 

 crake," was sure to be keeping up its endless monotony. But 

 the water-rail (Ralliis aqiiaticus) we have under the name 



