THE AUSTRALIAN BUSTARD 55 



The bustard {Eupodotis australis) is a large bird weigh- 

 ing at least twenty-five pounds ; and, contrary to what is 

 reported of the European bustard, when pursued it will 

 run, and not fly ; and no dogs that I have seen pursue it 

 could get near it. It is a very shy bird, with an acute 

 sense of smell ; and it is useless to attempt to approach it 

 except against the wind ; and then the sportsman will 

 probably be detected before he gets within three hundred 

 yards of it. It can only be shot with a rifle. 



On account of the difficulty of approaching the 

 Australian bustard, I have not been able to study its 

 habits very closely. I know that it eats large quantities of 

 insects, particularly cicadae, and condescends to prey upon 

 very minute animals of this class. It also consumes 

 small frogs and lizards, but I have not found other animal 

 food in the crops of the few I have shot. In one there was 

 a great mass of small seeds, and in another the remains 

 (elytra and legs) of many small beetles. Often a single 

 bustard may be seen running across the plain, sometimes 

 a pair, but rarely a party of them together. The Australian 

 bustard, therefore, is not gregarious. 



I have taken but two nests of this bird. In one there 

 was a single ^^^\ in the other, two; in both cases, the 

 clutch may have been incomplete. The eggs are light 

 brown, thickly sprinkled with spots of a darker hue. 

 There could scarcely be said to have been a nest under the 

 eggs. The coarse grass was pressed down and arranged 

 round a hollow, looking more like the lair of a mammal 

 than the nest of a bird. The spots chosen were in the 

 midst of dense scrub on the open plain, and the ^g%^ 

 harmonised so well with their surroundings that they were 

 difficult to discover, as, I may add, is the bird itself; for 

 on one occasion I got quite close to a sitting hen, and 

 should certainly have passed her without discovery had she 

 remained quiet. The mad rush with which she dashed 

 away was quite startling, and her speed so great that she 

 was quite a hundred yards away before I recognised her 

 to be a bustard. This bird had but a single o^gg under 

 her, which was evidently recently laid. I had the nest 



