190 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Major Matheson, of Lews Castle, Stornoway, mIio owtis 

 the majority, if not all, of Lewis, was told about this Quail, 

 and, as far as I can recollect, he stated that he knew of two 

 previous occurrences of this species in the island, and I fancy 

 he has a stuffed specimen in his possession. A note which 

 I sent to the Field about this bird was, unfortunately, put 

 under the " Shooting Notes " heading, and thus no doubt 

 escaped the attention of naturalists. W. M. Congreve. 



GREAT BUSTARD IN HAMPSHIRE. 



A Great Bustard {Otis tarda) was shot on January 12th, 1910, 

 in a turnip-field on Jamaica Farm, St. Mary Bourne, Hants. 

 The bird is an adult female and in good condition ; the state 

 of its plumage does not show any signs of its having been in 

 captivity, nor was it at all tame, and I cannot hear that any 

 have been kept in capti\dty in the neighbourhood. The 

 Aveather in England at the time it was obtained was very 

 unsettled and changeable, with heavy gales from the S.W., 

 W. and N.W. and snow, hail and rain ; and possibly severe 

 "weather may have driven it from its usual haunts. 



It is, of course, difficult to say Avith any certainty \A'hether 

 it is an escaped bird or not, but perhaps this note may elicit 

 some information on the subject. Philip W. Munn. 



THE MOULT OF THE GREAT BUSTARD. 

 What we wTote about the moult of the Great Bustard {Otis 

 tarda) in Wild Spaiji (by W. J. Buck and myself in 1892) — 

 and I had made the same mistake in The Ibis, 1884, p. 70 — 

 was v/rong. That is all a long time ago, and we were correcting 

 the mistake in our new work. Unexplored Spain (now in the 

 press), when the point was raised in British Birds {supra, 

 p. 32). The explanation we roughly transcribe from our 

 new book, as follows : — In spring it occasionally happens 

 that old male Bustards are found in so damaged a condition 

 — with some flight-feathers missing, others broken — as to 

 be incapable of flight. Several such instances had come 

 under our notice, and at the time misled us, and many others, 

 to conclude that the incapacity arose from a spring-moult, 

 similar to that of wild-geese and of some ducks. The true 

 reason, however, is as follo\\'s : — From da^^daA^Ti in spring 

 the male Bustards engage in continuous fighting, and as the 

 corn-growth is already quite tall and all vegetation saturated 

 with, night-dews, the plumage of the combatants becomes 

 completely dew-drenched {rociada, in Spanish) ; and when, 

 in addition, many quill-feathers are pulled out and others 

 broken during the fighting, it hapftens on occasion that a 

 heavy old male will be left incapable of rising from tlie ground. 



