on the breeding of the Little Bustard in 1915. 31


In the case of the smaller bird, of course, such insects as we

supply, or as the birds pick up for themselves in their enclosures in

fine weather, “go much further.” At any rate I have had, several

times, fertile eggs laid by two out of the 1 three females that I have

kept.


In 1912 a Little Bustard hatched two eggs, but the chicks

were sorely tried by the wet season, and the mother bird was so shy

that she did not take .advantage of our efforts to provide shelter for

her young, and the one that survived longest died, when just

beginning to feather, at fifteen days of age.


Last summer my birds were in fine condition, a male and two

females, all, I believe, birds of 1907. Until the grass gets up in

their enclosure, which they share with a pair of Oyster Catchers and

an Australian Thick-knee, the Little Bustards are shut up at night

in a dry shed. As with all Bustards, their silky feathers do not

turn rain well, and they are safer too on a floor of peat moss in damp

weather, even on such light soil as we luckily have here. The two

females winter quite well in a shed, but the male appears to feel the

damp more, and I generally keep him between October and April in

an aviary, which can be warmed by hot-water pipes.


The male Little Bustard assumes the nuptial dress very

much later than his bigger relative. In the case of Otis tarda, the

chestnut pectoral bands and “ whiskers ” begin to show about the

middle of December and he is in full dress by March, when tetrax

is just beginning to put on his handsome neck and chest ornaments

(here in East Yorkshire).


As soon as his courting-dress is complete, the nature of the

male Little Bustard alters. Hitherto a peaceable, inoffensive bird,

he becomes transformed into an excitable little warrior, seemingly

always spoiling for a fight. With short steps, head carried high,

and tail depressed, neck feathers extended laterally, and eye blazing,

he frequently runs to some selected spot, a bit of rising ground for

choice, where be utters his curious double rattling note like

miniature castanets, jerking his head back at the same time and

finishing the performance by a leap in the air with a whistling

“whip ” of his wings. The note “ carries ” several hundred yards.


Whether the Great Bustard is polygamous or not, has been



