GKEAT BUSTAKD. 



363 



Otis. Generic Characters. — Bill moderate, straight, depressed at the base, 

 tiie point of the upper inaudible curved. Nostrils a little removed from the 

 base, lateral, oval, and open. Legs long, naked above the tarsal joint. Toes 

 three, all directed forward, short, united at the base, and edged with membrane. 

 Wings of moderate length, in form rather rounded; the third i[uill-feather the 

 longest. 



The Great Bustard is a bird of such interest as well 

 as magnitude, tluit every individual capture becomes a sub- 

 ject for ornitliologicid record. Dr. Turner, who wrote in 

 1544, includes it among his English birds. In the printed 

 catalogue of the contents of the Tradescant Museum, pre- 

 served at South Lambeth, in 1656, is, " The Bustard, as 

 big as a Turkey, usually taken by greyhounds on Newmarket 

 Heath ;" and Merrctt, in his Pinax rerum naluralium 

 Britamiicarum, in 1667, includes the Bustard as taken on 

 Newmarket Heath and about Salisbury. Montagu notices 

 some instances of the occurrence of this bird in Devonshire, 

 and says that he had seen them in Wiltshire. White of 

 Selborne, in that portion of his Journal published by Mr. 

 Jesse in the second volume of his Gleanings in Natural 

 History, says, " Spent three hours of this day, November 

 17, at a lone farm-house, in the midst of the downs between 

 Andover and Winton. The carter told us that about 

 twelve years before he had seen a flock of eighteen Bustards 

 on that farm, and once since only two." White adds in 

 another place, " Bustards when seen on the downs resemble 

 flillow deer at a distance." In DanieFs Rural Sports, it is 

 stated, " that on the 29th of September 1800, Mr. Crouch 

 of Burford shot a hen Bustard on Salisbury Plain. This 

 bird was killed at the distance of forty yards with a common 

 fowling-piece, and with such shot as is generally used for 

 partridge-shooting. There were two other Bustards in com- 

 pany with the one shot, neither of which appeared to be 

 hurt." Markwick in his Catalogue of the Birds of Sussex, 

 published in 1798, says of the Great Bustard, " Sometimes 



