Vv RHINOCHETIDAE 263 
where the crops are low, yet sometimes they choose more bushy 
flats, or stony tops of elevated ridges. Their flight is prolonged 
and often rapid, though invariably heavy, the neck and legs being 
outstretched; the Great Bustard rises from the ground slowly, 
the Little Bustard with a rattling noise, but they are frequently 
loth to leave it, crouching to escape detection on the similarly 
coloured soil. They stalk about rapidly and run with ease, being 
shy, wary, and far-sighted, while they are more easy to approach 
when they resort to water. The quill-feathers are said to be lost 
after breeding.’ In spring the pugnacious cocks strut around the 
hens, swelling out their plumage, and inflating the gular pouch 
when it is present; the head meanwhile is thrown backwards, the 
wings droop, the tail is usually erected and outspread, and boom- 
ing or crooning utterances with leaps diversify the performance. 
At times the notes are described as scolding, drumming, craking, 
and clucking, or resemble “ cok-cok” or “ prut-prut.” The diet 
consists chiefly of juicy plants, such as young corn and turnips, 
clover and plantains, but it includes berries and seeds, insects and 
their larvae, molluses, myriapods, frogs, or even small reptiles and 
mammals. The Gom-Paauw ? (Lupodotis kor/) is so-called from its 
love of mimosa gum. The eges, varying from two to four or five 
in different species, are deposited in an excavation in the soil— 
sometimes lined with grass—under shelter of a bush, tussock, or 
growing crop; they are oily-green, olive, drab, red-brown, or ex- 
ceptionally bluish-green, and are generally blotched, clouded, or 
zoned with purplish or dull red. The hen sits very closely. 
Bustards can be circumvented by riding round them in constantly 
diminishing circles, and they are also captured with Falcons.’ 
A fossil Otis is recorded from the Miocene of France and 
Germany. 
Fam. VII. Rhinochetidae—This contains only one species, 
Rhinochetus jubatus, the Kagu of New Caledonia, a very old and 
generalized form, somewhat bigger than an ordinary fowl, which 
was originally referred to the Herons and then to the Cranes, but 
is undoubtedly nearly allied to the latter, and approximates rather 
closely to Hurypyga.* The head and eyes are large; the neck is 
1 Chapman and Buck, Wild Spain, London, 1893, p. 342. 
° The Boers of South Africa term all Bustards Paauw, 7.c. Peacock (Pavo). 
3 Dresser, Birds of Europe, vii. 1871-81, pp. 388, 394. 
4°W. K. Parker, 7r. Zool. Soc. London, vi. p. 501; x. p. 307; Murie, op. cit. 
vii. p. 465; A. D. Bartlett, P. 7. S. 1862, p. 218. 
