The Great Bustard 



261 



in continuous figliting, the corn-growth is aheady quite tall, and in the 

 early mornings all vegetation is saturated with night-dews, it occasionally 

 happens that a bustard may be met with incapable by this cause of 

 taking wing — that is, that some of the flight-feathers are lost or broken 

 and all dew-soaked (rociadas). The bustard moults gradually and never 

 loses the power of flight. 



While never attaining the size of wild birds, yet bustards 

 thrive well in captivity — always assuming that they have been 

 caught young. Old birds brought home wounded never survive 

 twenty-four hours, dying not from the wound (which may be 

 insignificant) but from harinchin, which may be translated 

 chagrin or a broken heart. Young bustards reared thus become 



5!^^^ 



TAIL-FEATHERS OF GREAT BUSTARD 



extremely tame, coming to call and feeding from the hand, 

 though when old the males are apt to grow vicious in spring, 

 attacking savagely children, dogs, and even women, especially 

 those whom they see to be afraid.^ Tame as they are, they are 

 always subject to strange alarms, seemingly causeless. Suddenly 

 they raise their wings, draw in their heads, and dance around, 

 jumping in air, and ever intently regarding the heavens — 

 sometimes dashing off under cover of bushes. One may connect 

 this exhibition with some speck in the sky, some passing eagle, 

 more often no motive is discernible. Bustard -chicks emit a 

 plaintive whistle so precisely similar to that of the kites that 

 (when hatched out under a domestic hen) the foster-mother has 

 been so terrified as to desert her brood. When adult, bustards 

 are usually quite silent, save for a grunting noise in spring — that 

 is, in captivity. But on a hot day we have heard the old males, 



^ W'e have never succeeded in inducing our tame bustards to breed in cajitivity. 



