612 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



from Northern Africa, which occasionally passes over into Spain. 

 One species is found in the North-western Provinces of India. 



837. Houbara Macqueenii, Gray. 



Otis, apud Gray — Hardwicke 111. Ind. Zool. — Gould, Birds 

 of Asia, pt. HI, pi. 8 — 0. marmorata, Gray, Hardwicke, 111. 

 Ind. Zool. 1, pi. 60 (the female) — Tilaor, R.^Obarra in the 

 Western Punjab — Hurriana Florikin of Sportsmen in the N. W. P. 

 — figured in Bengal Sporting Magazine, 1833. 



The Indian Houbara Bustard. 



Descr. — Male, head beautifully crested, the crest consisting of 

 a series of lengthened slender feathers'in the centre of the crown, 

 white with a black tip in front, wholly white behind; upper 

 plumage, including the neck, pale buff, somewhat albescent on the 

 wing-coverts and deeper on the back ; upper tail-coverts and tail 

 all delicately and minutely pencilled with black, and each feather 

 with a sub-terminal black band visible externally, and another at 

 the base of the feathers ; upper tail-coverts with the black bands 

 narrower, distant, and more or less ashy ; tail banded with bluish- 

 ashy, and all the lateral feathers broadly tipped with creamy 

 white ; greater wing-coverts tipped with white ; primaries white 

 at their base, black for the terminal half, and most so on the 

 outer web ; lesser wing-coverts and scapulars more or less spotted 

 with black, not barred ; the shorter quills and the winglct black, 

 the former tipped with white ; the cheeks are white, with black 

 shafts and tips ; the throat white ; neck fulvous ashy ; belly and 

 lower parts, including the lower surface of the wings, white; 

 under tail-coverts slightly barred ; the neck-ruff in its full integrity 

 during the breeding season begins from the ear-coverts, the 

 feathers are moderately long, about 2 inches, and entirely black 

 and silky ; on the sides of the neck they are at least 6 inches long, 

 white at the base and with black tips ; and, where they terminate 

 are still longer, wholly white, varying in texture and with more 

 or less disunited webs, very fine and curving downwards 

 below. 



