1114 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



moults are two annually, one from March to May and the other 

 autumnal, which is less complete and more speedily got over, 

 between August and October. The young males, up to the begin- 

 ning of March, entirely resemble the females, but the moult then 

 commencing gradually assimilates them to the adults, which never 

 lose, as the lesser species or Likh does, after the courting season, 

 the striking black and white garb that in both species is proper 

 to the male sex, and permanently so to the larger species after the 

 first year of age. There is, properly speaking, no niiptial dress in 

 this species, though the hackles and crest in their most entire 

 fulness of dimensions may be in part regarded as such." 



Now this statement of Hodgson's seems to be entirely correct, 

 except as regards one important particular. He considers, as we 

 have seen, that the Bustard assumes adult plumage in two moults, 

 or even in one, and that after the first year the young bird retains 

 permanently its adult (colouration ; I would change first year to 

 second year. 



We know now that just as many fully plumaged adult males are 

 seen during the cold weather, say from November to the end of 

 February as at any other time of the year. I have seen magni- 

 ficent specimens of cocks moulting in April from adult plumage to 

 adult plumage. But, on the other hand, I have several times seen 

 non-adult cock-birds, which were in an intermediate stage remoult- 

 ing in autumn and shewing some new feathers coloured as in the 

 female. From this we may, I think, infer that it takes the young' 

 cock at least two years before it assumes the full plumage of the 

 breeding cock. It will be seen that Blyth does not say that his 

 Bustard, after having a retrograde moult, then moulted in the 

 succeeding moult into full feathering, but he puts down this failure 

 to assume the fully adult garb to the effects of captivity. The 

 facts, in reference to the assumption of the fully adult plumage, 

 appear to be these. Iii the autumn moult of its first year the 

 young male bird retains its female plumage, but in the succeeding 

 spring moult acquires a colouration intermediate between the two 

 sexes. The autumn moult of the second year may often see the 

 young cock lose a certain amount of the colouring he had gained 

 in the spring, but at the next spring moult he goes further still 



