Grallce 187 



earlier in the century, and at least up to the year 1526 

 in Berwickshire and East Lothian. It seldom visits 

 Britain now, but ranges over central Europe and Asia 

 probably to the boundaries of China, being also found 

 from the Spanish Peninsula to Syria. The male has 

 a grey head, warm buff upper parts marked with black, 

 white on. the wings and belly, chestnut and grey breast- 

 bands, and a tuft of long white bristles on each side of 

 the gape. The female is much smaller, with no bristles 

 and no bright colour on the breast. This splendid 

 species has a very strong flight, except during the June 

 moult, at which the males lose all their wing-quills at 

 once ; they are pugnacious and shew off like a Turkey 

 in spring-time, when they swell out enormously a pouch 

 below the tongue. They feed upon green crops, varied 

 by seeds, worms, or even small mammals and birds. 

 Bustards afford excellent sport and are good for the 

 table, but they need very careful stalking, unless the 

 gunner lies in wait on their line of flight. The two or 

 three eggs, deposited without any nest, are olive-green 

 with faint reddish blotches. After their spring fights 

 the cocks flock apart from the hens. 



The Little Bustard (0. tetrax) is a rare visitor to 

 England as well as Scandinavia and north Russia, but 

 its visits to us, though irregular, are constant, as might 

 be expected from its abundance in some districts of 

 France and in the Spanish Peninsula. Thence it 

 extends on both sides of the Mediterranean to Greece, 

 Turkey, south Russia, Turkestan and west Siberia. The 

 flight is noisy, the note monosyllabic and reiterated; 

 the food resembles that of the last species, but the 

 smaller eggs are as a rule much brighter, and the bird 

 makes a slight nest in rough cover. Each cock remains 



