258 OTID1D.E. 



small flocks, which are very wild and wary. They migrate to the 

 north during the months of April and May, returning in October 

 and November. In addition to these migratory birds, great 

 numbers are resident during the nesting-season. The males do 

 not attain the full breeding-plumage until their third year, and 

 by October regain the dress of the females." Favier. 



My experience of the breeding-plumage of the Little Bustard 

 is rather different from the above ; for, as far as I have been able 

 to ascertain, the males lose the black markings of their nuptial 

 dress by the end of August, if not before. I could not make out 

 the exact period ; but never saw a black-marked male which had 

 been killed after the middle of August. The adult males never 

 lose the minutely marked or vermiculated plumage on the back, 

 which part in the females and young males is more spotted or 

 blotched, like the feathers of the Great Bustard. I found the 

 Little Bustard equally common in Morocco as in Andalucia on 

 all open low cultivated ground. On the dead level, or vega," of 

 the Barbate near Casas Viejas at times, in early autumn, they 

 positively swarmed in flocks sometimes of as many or more than 

 a hundred together, frequenting this flat ground till swamped by 

 the rains. They then resorted to higher and undulating ground, 

 and these large flocks gradually dispersed and broke up into lots 

 of from five or six to twenty in number. They are, as Favier 

 remarks, exceedingly wary, except during the breeding-season 

 and in the month of August. At other times the only way to 

 obtain them was by driving, very uncertain work, as, unlike the 

 Great Bustard, they usually rose high up at once, and their 

 power and rapidity of flight is astonishing for their size and 

 weight. 



They were often to be seen flying somewhat like Golden Plover, 

 twirling and twisting about at a great elevation ; and sometimes 

 I watched them rise and go to such a height that it would have 

 been difficult to tell what birds they were unless I had seen them 

 fly up from the ground. 



