68 STEPPE FAUNAS AND TEMPERATE 
As examples of steppe birds, we may name first the 
bustards, of which the largest form, the great bustard 
(Otis tarda), has been compared in build and habits to 
the ostrich of the Saharan desert. Bustards, though 
good fliers, are fleet of foot, and show a preference for 
open country. They do not seem to drink, and take 
both animal and vegetable food. In addition to the 
form mentioned, the little bustard (O. tetrax) and the 
ruffed or Macqueen’s bustard (Hubara undulata) also 
occur, the latter preferring running to flying, and 
having the habit, common among steppe animals, of 
squatting down when undisturbed, so as to take full 
advantage of its protective coloration, but stretching 
itself to its (considerable) height on an alarm in order 
to increase the range of vision over the plain. 
Pheasants, which are bush-haunting birds, just enter 
the region, but Pallas’s sand-grouse (Syrrhaptes para- 
doxus) is characteristic, both the young and the adult 
showing a delicately patterned type of coloration which 
is eminently fitted to conceal them in their natural 
habitat. The young are precocious, being able to run 
as soon as hatched. This is necessary in birds whose 
eggs are laid in a mere depression scratched in the 
loose soil. In the steppes the bird is said to feed chiefly 
‘on the seeds of a member of the Chenopodiaceae called 
Agriophyllum, and it assembles in largé flocks in places 
where this plant of the salt wastes is abundant. The 
plant is also relished by horses and camels, and its 
seeds are used as food by the nomads as well as by the 
sand-grouse. The sand-grouse shares with many steppe 
animals the peculiarity of being periodically very 
abundant, when it makes incursions on lands adjacent 
to its normal habitat. Flocks of it have appeared at 
various times in Europe, reaching even the British 
