120 



no ornamental whisker-like plumes, but on the nape is a full 

 crest of elongated feathers. The tarsus is very short. 



I. THE LITTLE BUSTARD. TETRAX TETRAX. 



Otis tetrax, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 264 (1766) ; Macg. Brit. B. 

 J Y - P- 35 ( l8 5 2 ); Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 382, pi. 509 

 (1872) ; B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 154 (1883) ; Seebohm, 

 Brit. B. iii. p. 587 (1884); Saunders, ed. Yarr. Brit. B. 

 iii. p. 216 (1883); id. Man. Brit. B. p. 511 (1889); Lil- 

 ford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxiv. (1893). 

 Tetrax tetrax, Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiii. p. 289 (1894). 



(Plate LXXV.} 



Adult Male. Sandy-buff, vermiculated and blotched with 

 black; quills white, blackish towards their ends, and white at 

 the tips ; the outer primaries blackish, with white bases, the 

 white gradually increasing towards the secondaries, which are 

 almost entirely white with an occasional spot of black, the 

 innermost secondaries like the back ; tail with four black bars, 

 the basal half white, the outer feathers broadly tipped with 

 creamy-white ; crown of head, nape, and hind-neck brown, 

 mottled with streaks and edges of sandy-buff, with which a few 

 blue-grey feathers are intermixed ; lores and sides of crown 

 pale sandy-buff, streaked with dark brown ; feathers above and 

 round the eye uniform creamy-buff; sides efface, ear-coverts, 

 cheeks, and throat light bluish-grey, bordered by a broad band 

 of black, which extends from the sides of the hind-neck 

 diagonally across the latter, and unites in a broad band which 

 runs down the centre of the lower throat ; round the hind- 

 neck, and occupying the sides of the latter, is a broad patch of 

 black, uniting on the upper fore-neck ; this is bordered above 

 by a broad band of white which encircles the hind-neck, sepa- 

 rates the black on the sides of the neck, and descending on 

 the latter to the lower throat, unites there in a point ; across 

 the lower fore-neck is a broad band of black which is separated 

 from the lower throat by a band of white, which traverses the 

 fore-neck also ; remainder of under surface of body pure 

 white ; bill horn-grey, black at the tip, dull yellowish at the 

 base of the lower mandible ; feet dull ochre-yellow ; iris yellow- 

 ish. Total length, 17 inches; culmen, 1*5; wing, 9-4 ; tail, 

 37; tarsus, 2-4. 



