342 WILD SPAIN. 



The eggs are laid in the last week of April (we found 

 two females, already sitting each on two eggs, on the 26th), 

 and about mid-May the males disappear. To Africa they 

 have gone, the local shooters aver ; but this, we know, is 

 not the case, and are far from sure that the missing 

 males are not simply hidden amidst the vast stretches of 

 corn, then near four feet high, pending their moult. 



Bustards moult very severely, casting all quill-feathers 

 (as wild geese do) almost simultaneously. Hence, at the 

 end of May, they become for a time incapable of flight, 

 and naturally, under such conditions, seek the utmost 

 seclusion, perhaps deceiving people into the illusion that 

 they had gone, when they are really simply in hiding, 

 which the rank summer vegetation renders easy enough. 

 After eggs are laid, the males certainly desert their 

 mates entirely, forming themselves into bachelor coteries, 

 and leaving to the female the entire burden of the nursery. 



Bustards take two years or more to acquire maturity : the 

 year-old males are hardly larger than adult females, possess 

 neither ruff nor whiskers, and do not breed. They probably 

 continue growing for three or four years, or even more. 

 An old harbon, when winged and brought to bay, will 

 turn and attack its aggressor, hissing savagely and 

 uttering a low guttural bark, " Wuff ! wuff ! " Except on 

 such occasions we have not heard any vocal sound from 

 a Bustard ; nor do they, when winged, ever attempt to 

 escape by running. 



Though the general habit of the Bustard is graminiv- 

 orous — his food consisting of the green corn, both blades 

 and shoots, of grain and green herbage of all kinds, yet in 

 summer, when the corn is cut, he develops for a time a 

 keenly carnivorous character, catching and swallowing 

 whole the rats and mice which, at that season, swarm on 

 the stubbled plain, as well as the young of ground-breeding 

 birds, buntings, larks, &c. Nor is a reptile wholly de- 

 spised — a small snake or green lizard is readily- included 

 in his menu, and at all seasons they are veiy fond of 

 insects, especially grasshoppers and locusts. 



