THE



Bvtcultural /Ubaga3tne t


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



VOL. III. — NO. 28. All rights reserved. FEBRUARY, 1897.



GREAT BUSTARDS.


By W. H. St. Quintin.


Very possibly some of the readers of the Avicultural

Magazine may at some time entertain the idea of keeping these

splendid birds, and in that case my experience, (extending over

the past eleven years, during which I have never been without

several specimens) may be of use. I have kept Great Bustards

which have come from Spain, East Germany, and Hungary. At

present, I have only one pair. The male, a fine seven or eight years

old bird, came from Germany, while his female companion is

Spanish. An old female, one of the first pair which I ever had,

has died recently from the effedts of an accident, after being in

my possession just eleven years. Although the males have

always shown off in the spring, I have never seen here any signs

of breeding, except that the female just mentioned did, three or

four summers ago, drop an egg without scratching a nest.

Though my birds have the run of an enclosure of a quarter of

an acre, part in grass, partly gravelled, and often with a plot of

rye or barley, sown in the middle of it, I have not yet induced

them to go to nest. Many of your readers will have seen that in

Regent’s Park they have been more successful; for one of the

females in the Bustard enclosure, a bird which, by the bye, once

belonged to me, has for several seasons laid eggs, and has sat

upon them ; though, probably from being too much disturbed

by visitors, and by the Cranes in the neighbouring paddocks,

hitherto without result.


The assumption in the male of the nuptial plumage, by

which I mean the long moustachios and the chestnut pectoral

bands, is a gradual process extending over several months, and

is interesting to watch. The whiskers or moustachios are shed

early in July, when the annual moult commences; and the}' - do

not appear again until just before Christmas. From that time.



