EUPODOTIS EDWABDSI 167 



40 lbs. have been recorded. I cannot trace these records, and there 

 may possibly be some mistake about them. 



Adult Female. — The adult female only differs from the male in 

 being very much smaller, in having the white of the head and neck 

 less pure and more vermiculated with black bars, and in having the 

 pectoral band absent or only faintly indicated except at the sides. 



Measurements. — Length of wing 18 to 22 inches, tail 9 to 10, 

 tarsus 6'20 to 6-50, middle toe about 2"5, bill, culmen 2'20 to 235, 

 from gape S'OO to 3-20. 



Weight from 8 to 11 lbs., running up to 13 lbs., but sometimes 

 heavier still, as Captain J. R. J. Tyrrell informs me that in December, 

 1905, he shot a female weighing between 14 and 15 lbs. not far from 

 Dhar in the Bhopawar Agency, C.I., whilst Major Burton records 

 three hens between 17 to 18 lbs. 



The crest-feathers are not often as fully developed as in the male. 



Young Male. — Resembles the female but with buff spots on the 

 crown, hind-neck and upper back. 



Nestling. — Covered with down, buff above with black marks on 

 the head and upper back ; below white or buft'y-white. 



Distribution. — The distribution of the Great Indian Bustard, which 

 is not, of course, found outside Indian limits, is thus given by Blan- 

 ford in the fourth volume of the 'Avifauna of British India.' The 

 plains of the Punjab between the Indus and the Jumna, also Eastern 

 Sind, Cutch, Kattyawar, Rajputana, Guzerat, the Bombay Deccan, 

 the greater part of the Central Provinces, extending as far east as 

 Bambalpur, the Hyderabad Territories, and parts of the Madras 

 Presidency and the Mysore State as far south as Southern Mysore 

 and perhaps further south. Stragglers may be found outside the 

 area specified, as in Western Sind, Meerut and Oudh ; but the 

 Bustard is unknown in Behar, Chota Nagpur, Orissa and Bengal, on 

 the Malabar Coast and in Ceylon. 



Gates, in his ' Game-Birds ' thus briefly describes its habitat : — 



" It is found in the Punjab and less commonly in Sind. To the 

 east it ranges as far as the Jumna and approximately up to a line, 

 roughly speaking, connecting Delhi and Sambalpur in the Central 

 Provinces. Southwards it is met with down to about the 11th degree 

 of north latitude." 



