132 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



bustard, like most of its family, is essentially a bird of the open, 

 and avoids heavy cover. 



Dry undulating land, bare or grassy, is the bustard's favourite 

 country, but when the grass in its haunts is cleared off it will 

 resort to the waterside, or depart altogether to a locality where 

 there is more grass. It also frequents wheatfields, and will eat 

 grain as well as other seeds, shoots and berries, especially those 

 of the ber and caronda, though it is by nature rather an animal 

 than a vegetable feeder, especially relishing grasshoppers. 

 Beetles — including blister-beetles — caterpillars, and even Hzards 

 and snakes, form part of its food ; no doubt it will in practice 

 eat any small living creature it comes across, as the great 

 bustard of Europe does. 



Although this bustard does not fly high, it rises easily and 

 is willing to travel several miles at a time, and it must traverse 

 considerable distances at times in changing its quarters in search 

 of suitable feeding-grounds. No one in modern times has ridden 

 it down, as a writer in the old Bengal Sporting Magazine said 

 he had known done ; perhaps a bird in heavy moult might 

 succumb to persistent hunting, but the pace of this large species 

 on the wing is much greater than it appears, and would not 

 give a horseman much chance to come up with it and tire 

 it out. 



Generally speaking, it is considered a most difficult bird to 

 bring to bag, requiring very careful stalking, though now and 

 then birds surprised in cover taller than themselves may fall 

 easy victims. Now and then a few old cocks will associate with 

 blackbuck, no doubt for the sake of mutual protection by watch- 

 fulness, just as the true ostrich in Africa associates with the 

 zebra and gnu, and the rhea, the so-called " ostrich " of southern 

 South America, with the guanaco or wild llama. At all times 

 this bustard is commonly in some sort of company of its own 

 kind. A few old cocks or hens may chum together apart from 

 the other sex when not breeding, while in the breeding season 

 a strong cock collects about him as many as half a dozen wives. 



Nowadays, however, flocks of as many as two dozen birds, 

 such as Jerdon records, are hardly ever to be seen, the largest 

 parties generally numbering under a dozen. 



