GREAT Bl'STABD. 



of forty or fifty feet, and then, after a few rapid strokes, sail 

 away. When flushed they perform flights of two miles or 

 more without difficulty, at a height of about a hundred yards, 

 and their migrations testify that they are capable of much 

 more extended peregrinations. They do not run to escape 

 danger. The wings are not closed immediately on alighting. 

 Graminivorous birds, they feed on grasses, clover, turnip 

 tops, and various vegetables, corn, barley, both the ears and 

 leaves, and other grain, and beetles; Eennie adds worms, frogs, 

 mice and young birds to the catalogue: small stones are 

 swallowed to grind up the food. The young are fed with insects. 

 The bare earth is laid upon. 'It is said that the Great 

 Bustard will forsake her nest, if only once driven from it by 

 apprehension of danger; but when the eggs are laid, and stil 

 more when the young are produced, it is only repeated meddling 

 with them that will induce the parents to forsake them. 



The esgs, two in number, are of an olive brown colour, blotte< 

 with pa!e & ferruginous and ash-coloured spots. 



Male; weight, as much as twenty-eight or thirty pounds; 

 length, three feet nine inches; bill, brown; iris, reddish brown. 

 Head on the centre of the crown, chesnut, variegated with 

 black, on the sides, white; neck on the back, light greyish, 

 on the sides, white; about the shoulders a soft grey down takes 

 the place of feathers; nape, pale chesnut, barred with black; 

 chin, white; underneath it a plume of narrow feathers about 

 seven inches long falls backward, partly covering a strip ot 

 bluish grey skin on the front and sides of the neck; throat 

 above, white, below, pale chesnut orange, as is the upper part 

 of the breast, which then below is white; the feathers have a 

 pink tinge at the base; back, pale chesnut orange, barred and 

 variegated with black; the base of these feathers also is of a 

 delicate rose tint. 



The wings have the first quill feather shorter than the second, 

 the second shorter than the third and fourth, which are the 

 longest in the wing; they extend to as much, in the fullest- 

 sized birds, as seven feet three inches; greater and lesser wing 

 coverts, partly white and partly chesnut brown, barred with 

 black; primaries, brownish black, the shafts white; secondaries, 

 greyish white; tertiaries, chesnut brown, barred with black. 

 The tail, rounded at the end, and of twenty feathers, is white 

 at the base, then pale chesnut, tipped with white and barred 

 with black, the two outer feathers greyish white, almost pure 

 white at the base, with two or three small bars of black, near 



