LITTLE BUSTARD Ul 



as well as east, especially to South-eastern Europe. It is found 

 in the highlands of West China, and resides in Afghanistan and 

 Baluchistan all the year round. It goes down in British bird 

 books as Macqueen's bustard, one of our rarities. Somewhere 

 or other it must meet the North African houbara (Hoiibara 

 unclulata), which ranges into Armenia, and differs from our bird 

 by having no black tips to the crest feathers, the long breast- 

 plumes white instead of grey, and much coarser black pencilling 

 on the sandy back, this pencilling, common to bustards 

 generally, being particularly delicate in the Eastern houbara. 

 The name Houbara is a native one as well as Tiloor, which in 

 Sind becomes Taloor. 



Little Bustard. 



Otis tetrax. Ckota tilur, Hindustani. 



" Butterfly houbara " is a common sportsman's name for this 

 smart little bustard, the smallest kind known except the lesser 

 florican ; it is given from the bird's peculiar free-and-easy, go-as- 

 you-please style of flight, often high in the air, and altogether 

 different from that of other bustards. The bird, however, has 

 two distinct styles of flight, for it can get away steadily and 

 swiftly like a partridge. In any case, its white wings make it 

 conspicuous in flight ; on the ground it looks like a bob-tailed 

 hen pheasant, being of about that size and with light brown 

 plumage coarsely mottled with black. 



It is only a winter visitor here — and only to the North-west 

 Punjab at that, though stragglers may cross the Indus, and 

 three have been got in Kashmir ; and so we do not see the males 

 in their courting bravery of grey face, white necklaces, and black 

 breast ; in their winter dress they are indistinguishable from 

 hens except in the hand, being merely less coarsely pencilled on 

 the back and less regularly on the breast. There is no constant 

 difference in size, some cocks being smaller than hens, others 

 larger. 



October is the month in which the little bustard may be 

 expected to arrive, and most have left India by the end of 

 March ; but it is not much observed or written about, though 



