Birds. 7433 



small beetles, mingled with a ?;oo(lly proportion of sand. It has no crop or upper 

 stomach. The male bird is about four years old before he gets his full tail, as I have 

 proved by shooting examples in full feather with the tail in four different stages of 

 development; the two centre curved feathers are the last to make their appearance. 

 It breeds in winter, commencing its nest in May, laying in June, and hatching its 

 young in July. It generally builds on some bare rock, where there is a sufficient 

 shelter for a lodgment, so that no animals or vermin can approach. The nest is con- 

 structed of small sticks interwoven with long dry roots and moss, the inside being 

 composed of the skeleton leaf of the parasitical tree-fern, which makes an inside lining, 

 and is very similar to horse-hair. It is completely rain-proof, and has an entrance at 

 the side. The hen lays only one egg, of a very dull colour, looking as if it had been 

 blotched over with ink. The young bird when first hatched is covered with a while 

 down, and remains in the nest about six weeks before it takes its departure. The flesh 

 is not good for food, being of a dark colour, tough and dry. The aboriginal name is 

 " colwin.'' — A. A. Leicester, in ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' 1860, p. 113. 



Bustards at Kala-hai. — About fifty miles west of the point of Shan-lung we 

 observe a narrow harbour, formed by a deep bight of the coast, and which ends in a 

 creek running over a plain half grassy and half sand. This is Kala-hai, not marked 

 in the charts. At the entrance we find a fishing party very busy curing cod and skate 

 and soles and sharks. Their boats are hauled up on the sands and their nets spread 

 out to dry, while " all hands " under a shed, half buried in heaps of fish, are cleaning 

 and salting with true Chinese industry. As we follow the course of the creek, we find 

 the view bounded seaward by desolate undulating sand-hills, and landward by green 

 pleasant slopes and villages buried in trees. On the sward between the salt-water 

 lagoon and the sand-hills herds of neat little oxen are grazing placidly. On the sandy 

 mud of the half dry-lagoon Scopiraera globosa, a little roundabout crab, taken quite 

 by surprise, is seen scuttling into holes or quickly hiding in the soft sand. In muddy 

 pans Glaucomya and Analiua (bivalve mollusks), buried in the mud, throw up from 

 their siphons little watery jets. On the sand-hills are the bustards (O/ii .ffouWa) 

 walking about like turkeys, feeding on the dry fruit of a plant unknown to me, or 

 pausing suddenly in their confident strut, with head on one side and outstretched neck. 

 Their quick eye sees the strangers, and with a short cry they all run towards each other, 

 and rise in a little flock of from ten to twenty. — Arthur Adams. 



Occurrence of the Little Bustard (Otis tetrax) in Moray.— On the 8th inst. the 

 gardener at Westfield, in the parish of New-Spynie, and about four or five miles north- 

 west of Elgin, discovered a litlle bustard picking turnip-tops, along with a flock of wood- 

 pigeons. It rose with the pigeons, but flew in a difi'erent direction. Its flight was Hke that 

 of a wild duck, except that it kept its head and neck erect or at right angles to its body. 

 Taking a circular course over a twenty-acre field, and while making off, it fell before 

 the gardener's gun at a long distance. It is now in the hands of a bird-stuffer, and 

 will soon have a place assigned to it in the Elgin Museum, beside the one killed near 

 Montrose in 18.33, and noticed by Mr. Yarrell. My friend, Mr. P. P. Sellar, to whom 

 I am indebted for the above particulars, states that a few days after his gardener shot 

 this little bustard another was seen two or three times, frequenting the same grounds 

 and feeding in the turnip fields. It was very shy, and could nut be approached within 

 a couple of hundred yards. Within the las-t few months little bustards have been found 

 in Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk (Zool. 7315 7352 and 7353). On the lengthened sea- 

 board that runs northward from these counties to the Moray Firth, other individuals of 



VOL XIX. T 



