590 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



back marked with the same fine striations as the adult male ; " but 

 Saunders appears to assert that the adult female is also finely striated on 

 the back, though he omits all mention of the young *. 



* There can scarcely be any doubt that the male Little Bustard loses the black and 

 white gorgets after the autumn moult. My Bukharest Jager, a very intelligent man, 

 assured me that the males assumed the plumage of the female before they left the 

 Danubian steppes. Loche makes the same statement respecting the Algerian birds ; and 

 Hume says that in India they are never seen with the black and white gorgets, though it 

 is difficult to believe that these are not assumed in spring before the birds migrate north- 

 wards to breed. Heuglin, speaking of the Little Bustard in Egypt, states that the young 

 males have the head and neck coloured as in the female, but that the back has the tine 

 vermiculations of the adult male. A skin of a Little Bustard in the British Museum, and 

 another in Dresser's collection, have the back coarsely vermiculated, though the nuptial 

 gorgets show them to be males. The only conclusion I can draw is that Heuglin 

 confounded the adult male in winter plumage with the young male in first plumage ; 

 that the latter resembles the female until the spring moult, when it assumes the 

 gorgets of the adult, but does not moult the coarsely vermiculated plumage of its 

 back until the autumn. It is remarkable how little is known of the changes of 

 plumage of birds which do not breed in Germany, and have not had the advantage 

 of having been studied by Naumann. 



GKEAT BUSTARD. 



