176 REMINISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



CHAP. XVI. 



THE bustard: its habits. — A feexchman's anecdote.— the 



BtrSTAKD IN MOROCCO, THE ISLAND OF SARDINIA, AND C.iNADA. 



" Let feather' d songsters lurk in groves, 

 O'er freer space the bustard roves ; 

 When England boasted open plains, 

 They were the bustard's lov'd domains : 

 Wliy has he bid these haunts farewell ? 

 Fence, palisades, and fosses tell." 



The bustard or wild turkey is considered the largest of the 

 British fowls ; the male usually weighing about twenty- 

 five pounds ; there are some old birds that have been 

 found to weigh as much as twenty-seven pounds. The 

 breadth, with the wings extended, nine feet ; the length 

 nearly four. Besides the difference of size and colour, 

 the male is distinguished from the female by a tuft of 

 feathers about five inches long on each side of the lower 

 mandible. Its head and neck are ash colour ; the back is 

 barred traversely with black and bright rust colour ; the 

 greater quill feathers are black, the belly white; the 

 tail is marked with broad red and black bars, and 

 consists of twenty feathers ; the legs are dusky. The 

 female is about half the size of the male ; the crown 

 of the head of a deep orange, traversed with black 

 lines ; the rest of the head is brown, the lower part of 



