338 Struthionidce. 



un ; to the Spaniard, Clic-clic-lic, which perhaps led to the 

 invention of the castanets ; while in England it says, ' Wet my 

 lips, wet my lips.'* Professor Skeat says that the English 

 1 Quail ' and in like manner the French Caille and the Italian 

 Quaglia signifies ' a quacker,' from the root quachan, ' to 

 croak.' On the other hand, the Spanish Codorniz and the 

 Portuguese Codornis are from the classical Latin Coturnix, the 

 etymology of which is unknown (B.O.U.). Its period of arrival 

 in Western Europe is May, and of departure October. 



STRUTHIONID.E (THE BUSTARDS). 



This is a family which used to thrive in Wiltshire more than 

 any other county in England, inasmuch as our wide, open downs 

 in the north, and Salisbury Plain in the south, offered such an 

 extensive range and such an undisturbed stronghold as could 

 not be found elsewhere in the British Isles. That was in the 

 days when the great stretches of hill and dale were covered 

 with the original turf, and gave the best and sweetest of pasture 

 to the large flocks of sheep which wandered over them; but 

 when the plough invaded these solitudes, and the down was 

 broken up, and barley and wheat, which required hoeing in the 

 spring, succeeded to the sheepwalks, the Bustards were gradually 

 driven away or destroyed, and though here and there an in- 

 digenous straggler seems to have lingered on through the early 

 part of this century, they must have been getting very scarce a 

 hundred years ago ; and though now and again of late years a 

 specimen of either species comes over from the South of France 

 or Spain, it is but an accidental visitor, which meets with any- 

 thing but a kindly welcome when it arrives at the haunts of its 

 relatives of bygone years. The Bustards are essentially Ground- 

 birds, for they never perch, and unless disturbed or frightened 

 are seldom inclined to take wing. They can, however, fly with 

 considerable speed, and do on occasion prolong their flight to 

 great distances ; hence the arrival, though rarely, of visitors of 



* Howard Saunders in fourth edition of Yarrell's ' British Birds ' vol. iii., 

 p. 129. 



