ORDER GRALLiE. 4>5S 



The bustard, especially when young, is esteemed an excel- 

 lent game, and the quills, like those of the goose and swan, 

 are employed in writing. Mauduyt and others have expressed 

 a wish, that attempts were made to domesticate the great 

 bustard ; but though their being native to the climate, and 

 the facility with which the young are tamed, offer induce- 

 ments to such a measure, yet the small number of their eggs 

 is no doubt a reason against its being generally undertaken. 

 Pallas even informs us, in his travels in the southern parts of 

 the Russian Empire, that the young bustards which are 

 tamed and brought up in the Crimea, never lay eggs ; and 

 our countryman, Montague, in his Ornithological Dictionary, 

 states, that they cannot be preserved above two or three years 

 at most. 



The Little Bustard (Otis Tetraw) is called by the French 

 Canepetiere, and also Cane-petiere (with a hyphen), Cane- 

 petrace, or Cane-petrate ; these names are derived from 

 some fancied resemblance in the flight or attitude of these 

 birds, with those of the wild duck, and from the predilection 

 of the bustards in question for stony places. These names, or 

 rather this name, for they are but one, may be considered 

 objectionable enough, as leading to the supposition of an 

 analogy between a bird that is so exclusively terrestrial, and 

 one that is purely aquatic. We must also confess that the 

 name of the little bustard is far from being sufficiently cha- 

 racteristic of this species, though its size does not exceed that 

 of the pheasant. 



Though this bustard is not very common in France, where 

 perhaps it may be considered only as a bird of passage, it is 

 yet less rare there than in many other countries. It is found 

 in the departments of the Maine, of Poitou, of Berry, of 

 Beauce, of Normandy, and principally in the environs of 

 Bourges, and of Chateauroux. But it is not sedentary there, 

 as in Sardinia, where it is called gallina pratajuola, and 



