42 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXL 



A remarkable extension to this birds range is made by records 

 of three birds obtained in Kashmir. The first of these refers to 

 one obtained by Col. A. E. AVard near Hajan, Kashmir, in Dec- 

 ember 1906, and recorded in Vol. XVII of the Journal of the 

 Bomba}^ Natural History Society ; the other two are recorded by 

 Mr. F. J. Mitchell in Vol. XX of the same journal. Of these two 

 latter one was shot by Major Brown during a duck drive on the 

 Hooka Sar Jhil in 1910 and the second by Major Smith near the 

 Woolar Lake in early 1911. 



The Little Bustard is, of course, only a cold weather visitant to 

 India, arriving early in October and leaving in March, occasion- 

 ally staying as late as the first week or two in April. These dates 

 are very rough but there is a curious absence of all records as to 

 this bird's appearance and disappearance from Indian limits and an 

 almost equal lack of accounts of its ever being shot or hawked. 



One of the best general accounts of this bird's habits, &c., is 

 that given by Seebohm and quoted by Oates on pp. 410-411 of 

 "Game Birds." Seebohm writes as follows: "It is a partial 

 migrant, arriving at its breeding grounds in flocks early in April, 

 which are dispersed in May. It is so much less than the Great 

 Bustard, that by the middle of May the grass and the flowers hide 

 it completel}:" from view. The females sit very close and are 

 difficult to find, but the males betray themselves by their curious 

 notes. As you drive slowly across the steppes, your attention is 

 arrested by a distant cry, resembling the sound of the syllable 

 spurrtz. By following with the wagon in the direction whence it 

 proceeds for a hundred yards or more, jou may generallj^ put up 

 the bird, frecjuently within shot, but it followed on foot there is 

 little or no chance of securing it. The flight is quite different to 

 that of the Great Bustard, more resembling that of the partridge 

 than that of a heron. The wings are moved with great rapidity 

 and the flight is very straight, though not very slow. The beats 

 of the wing are so rapid that they make quite a loud whirring 

 sound, and they shew more white when flj^ing than the Great 

 Bustard does. In many respects their flight resembles that of a 

 butterfly or of a Snow-Bunting. We never saw two males 

 together during the breeding season. The nest can only be found 



