GREAT BUSTARD. 437 



Esq., of Balrath Kells, in the county of Meath, and was 

 as follows : 



" You will perhaps be interested by the following few 

 remarks on the habits of the Great Bustard, as observed 

 by me in the neighbourhood of Seville, where they exist 

 in large numbers.* 



" The males begin to arrive in the cultivated part of the 

 country at the beginning of February ; they come in flocks, 

 varying from seven to fifty-three, the smallest and largest 

 numbers I have seen together at that season of the year. 

 The old birds always go together; those of a year old, 

 which are much smaller, never mix with them. The young 

 birds have neither beard nor pouch. 



" The females do not arrive till the beginning of April, 

 and come singly, or at most in pairs : as soon as they 

 arrive the flocks of males begin to break up, and after 

 about three weeks you seldom meet more than three or 

 four old males together, they being very frequently to be 

 met with singly. At this time, on a fine day, they spread 

 their tails like Turkey cocks, drooping their wings and 

 expanding their pouches. Being perfectly white under 

 the tail, they can be seen at a great distance while in this 

 attitude ; I have, however, never seen a female near a cock, 

 as apparently they live quite separate. During the month 

 of May the cocks entirely disappear from the cultivated 

 lands, leaving the hens behind them ; they, I have every 

 reason to believe, go down to the extensive grass marshes 

 which stretch along the banks of the Guadalquivir. The 

 young Bustards are hatched in the large corn plains about 

 Seville, and are able to take care of themselves when the 

 corn is cut in July. At the end of that month, when all 



"The Great Bustard is found in vast numbers, in most of the middle- and 

 southern plains, especially in New Castile, Estremadura, and Andalusia." 

 Captain Cook Widrington's Sketches in Spain, 1834, vol. ii. page 280. 



