THE BUSTARDS. 



The Eustards live generally iu open countries, preferring plains or extensive downs 

 dotted with low bushes and underwood, where an enemy may be descried from far, and 

 from wlienco they can run with exceeding swiftness, using their wings like the ostriches, 

 to accelerate their course. When they do take wing their flight is low, and they slum 

 along the ground with a sufficiently sustained and rapid flight. Their food consists of 

 vegetables, insects, worms, grain, and seeds. • 



They are polygamous, one nuile sufliciag for many females. It appears that the males 

 in the greatest number of species differ from the females in having extraordinary orna- 

 ments, and in possessing a more ^■ariegated plumage. They are said to moult tfl'icc a 

 year. Their massy port, and the slightly arched and vaulted upper mandible of the beak, 

 and the little webs between the bases of their toes, recall the form of the gallinaceous 

 birds, but in other respects, as in the nudity of the lower part of the legs, their whole 

 anatomy, and even the flavour of their flesh, the differences are great and decisive. 



THE GREAT r.USTAIiP.* 

 ♦v 



The Great Bustard is found in some provinces of France and in parts of Germany and 

 Italy. It is common in Russia, and on the extensive plains of Tartary. It is ^'ery 

 abundant in some parts of Spain and Portugal, and it is dispersed over tlie more temperate 

 parts of Africa. 



Graves o-ives a figure of a male bird said lo have been drawn from one taken alive on 

 Salisbury Plain in 1797. Montague states that not one had been seen in that locality 

 for two or three years prior to 1813. Another naturalist says : — -"We are old enough to 

 remember seeing one, and sometimes two, bustards as the crowning ornaments of the 

 magnificent Christmas larder, at the Bush Inn, Bristol, in the reign of John Weeks .of 

 ho.spit^ble memory." 



According to Brookes, there are bustards in France, which frequent large open plains, 

 particularly near Chalons, where, in the winter time, there are great numbers of them 

 seen together. There is always one placed as a sentinel, at some distance from the flock, 

 which giyes notice to the rest of any danger. They raise themselves from the ground, 

 some assert, with great difficulty ; for they run sometimes a good way, beating their 

 wings, before they &y. In that country they are taken with a hook, baited with an 

 apple or flesh ; sometimes fowlers shoot them as the)^ lie concealed behind some eminence, 

 or on a load of straw ; others take them with greyhounds, which often catch them before 

 they arc able to rise. 



Selby, well informed on the subject, contradicts the statement of various writers as to 

 this bird's reluctance to take wing. Jle says : " With respect to its habits in a wild 

 state, it is so shy as seldom to be approached within gun-shot ; invariably selecting the 

 centre of the largest enclosure, w"herc it v\'alks slowly about, or stands with the head 

 reposing backwards upon the bare part of its neck, and frequently with one leg drawn 

 up. Upon being disturbed, so far from running in preference to flight (as lias been often 

 described), it rises upon the wing with great facility, and flies with much strength and' 

 swiftness, usually to another haunt, which will sometimes be at the distance of six or 

 seven miles." 



• Otis Tarda. — Liim. 



