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



insects. The hen birds, remarks the writer quoted above, 

 generally congregate together during the rains, are very timid, 

 and frequently, when a sportsman is pursuing a single one, she 

 will attempt to seek safety, fatally for herself, in some large bush, 

 particularly if the gunner turn aside his head, and affect not to see 

 her at the moment of hiding. The cock-birds at this season feed 

 a mile or so apart from the hens, and stretching their magnificent 

 white necks, stride along most pompously. Besides grasshoppers, 

 which vdhj be said to be their favourite food, the Bustard will eat 

 any other large insect, more especially Mylahris, or blistering 

 beetle, so abundant during the rains ; the large Bwprestis, iScara- 

 haei, caterpillars, etc., also lizards, centipedes, small snakes, etc. 

 Mr. Elliott found a Quail's egg entire in the stomach of one, and 

 they will often swallow pebbles or any glittering object that 

 attracts them. I took several portions of a brass ornament, the 

 size of a No. 16 bullet, out of the stomach of one Bustard. In 

 default of insect food, it will eat fruit of various kinds, especially the 

 fruit of the Byr (ZizyphiLS jujuba) and Oaronda (Garissa carandas) ; 

 grain, and other seeds and vegetable shoots. 



" The Bustard is polj^gamous, and at the breeding season, which 

 varies very greatly according to the district, from October to 

 March, the male struts about on some eminence puffing oiit the 

 feathers of his neck and throat, expanding his tail, and ruffling his 

 wings, uttering now and then a low deep moaning call heard a 

 great way off. The female lays one or two eggs of a dark olive 

 green, faintly blotched with dusky. I have killed the young, half 

 grown, in March near Saugor. 



" The Bustard has another call heard not unfrequentlj^, compared 

 by some to a bark or a bellow, chiefly heard, however when the 

 bird is alarmed. This is compared by the natives to the word 

 hooh, hence the name of hoohna, by which it is known to the 

 villagers about Gwalior. When raised, it generally takes a long 

 flight, sometimes three or four miles, with a steady, continued 

 flapping of its wings, at no great height from the ground, and I 

 never found that it had any difficulty in rising, not even requiring 

 to run one step, as I have many times had occasion to observe 

 when flushing them in long grass of wheat fields. On the open 



