306 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



Adult female. — The adult female only differs from the male 

 in being very much smaller, in having the white of the head and 

 neck less pure and more vermiculated with black bars and in hav- 

 ing the pectoral band absent or only faintly indicated except at 

 the sides. Length of wing 18" to 22"; tail 9" to 10" ; tarsus 

 6-20" to 6-50" ; middle toe about 2-5" ; bills, culmen 2-20" to 

 2-35"; from gape 3-00" to 3-20". 



Weight from 8 to 11 lbs., running up to 13 lbs., but sometimes 

 heavier still, as Oapt. J. R. J. Tyrell informs me that in December 

 1905 he shot a female weighing between 14 and 15 lbs. not far from 

 Dhar in the Bhopawar Agency, 0. I., whilst Major Burton records 

 three hens between 17 to 18 lbs. 



The crest feathers are not often as fully developed as in the male. 

 Young male. — Resembles the female but with buff spots on the 

 crown, hind neck and upper back. 



Nestling. — Covered with down, buff above with black marks on 

 the head and upper back ; below white or huSy white. 



The distribution of the Great Indian Bustard, which is' not, of 

 course, found outside Indian limits, is thus given b}" Blanford in 

 the fourth volume of the " Avifauna of British India." The 

 Plains of the Punjab between the Indus and the Jumna, also 

 Eastern Sind, Cutch, Kattyawar, Rajputana, Guzerat, the Bombay 

 Deccan, the greater part of the Central Provinces, extending as far 

 East as Sambalpur, the Hyderabad territories, and parts of the 

 Madras Presidency and the Mysore State as far South as Southern 

 Mysore and perhaps further South. Stragglers may be found 

 outside the area specified, as in Western Sind, Meerut and Oudh ; 

 but the Bustard is unknown in Behar, Chota Nagpur, Orissa and 

 Bengal, on the Malabar Coast and in Ceylon." 



Gates, in his " Game Birds " thus briefly describes its habitat : 

 " It is found in the Punjab and less commonly in Sind. To the 

 East it ranges as far as the Jumna and approximately up to a line, 

 roughly speaking, connecting Delhi and Sambalpur in the Central 

 Provinces. Southw^ards it is met with down to about the 11th 

 degree of North latitude." 



Capt. K. L. W. Mackenzie, of the 62nd Punjabis, writes to me 

 that he shot "one of a party of four hen Great Indian Bustard at 



