GREAT BUSTARD. 369 



meat. Mr. Townsend bought both the birds in Leadenhall 

 Market, and both of them exhibited marks of having been 

 trapped and caught by the legs. 



A remarkable anatomical peculiarity in the male of the 

 Great Bustard, first discovered by Dr. James Douglas, of 

 the College of Physicians in London, is thus described by 

 Edwards in his Gleanings, with a figure. " It is a pouch or 

 bag to hold fresh water, which supplies the bird in dry places 

 when distant from waters ; the entrance into it is between 

 the under side of the tongue and the lower mandible of the 

 bill. I poured into this bag, before the head was taken off, 

 full seven wine pints (which about equals seven pounds of 

 our common weight) before it run over. This bag is wanting 

 in the hen." — See page 375. There is, however, some reason 

 to doubt whether this is really the use to which the pouch 

 is applied, since it is mentioned by Bewick that one of these 

 birds, which was kept in a caravan, among other animals as a 

 show, lived without drinking. It was fed with leaves of cab- 

 bages, and other greens, and also with flesh and bread. 



The figure and the descriptions here given are taken from 

 a very fine pair of these birds in the Museum of the Zoolo- 

 gical Society. 



The adult male has the beak clay brown ; the irides hazel ; 

 the head and the upper part of the neck greyish white ; from 

 the chin, ])assing backwards and downwards on each side, 

 there is a tuft or plume about seven inches long, directed 

 across and partly concealing a vertically elongated strip of 

 bare skin of a bluish grey colour ; the lower part of the neck 

 behind, the back, upper tail-coverts and tail-feathers, of an 

 ochreous yellow or pale chestnut, barred transversely with 

 black ; the tail-feathers tipped with white ; the wing-coverts 

 and tertials white ; the primaries black, Avitli white shafts ; 

 neck in front, the breast, all the under surface of the body, 

 the thighs, and under tail-coverts white ; under surface of the 



VOL. II. 2 B 



