454 CLASS AVES. 



where it passes the entire year. It is also to be seen in other 

 parts of Italy ; in Spain, where it is called sison ; in Greece, 

 and in Asia Minor. It is not common in England, Germany, 

 or Sweden. Pallas has frequently met with small flocks of 

 them in the plains of Southern Russia, among the Cossacks 

 of the Jaik, and even in the deserts of Tartary. 



The little bustards, which are as wild and suspicious as the 

 great, remove to some distance, with a low and stiff flight, 

 when they perceive any one, and afterwards run with great 

 rapidity. In spring they arrive in France, and leave it 

 towards the end of September. They delight in fields sown 

 with oats and barley, and in meadows of clover, &c. They 

 feed on grass, seeds, worms, and insects. In the month of 

 May, which is the epoch of coupling, the male, who suffices 

 for many females, calls them by a peculiar cry, which is 

 heard at a considerable distance during the night, and the 

 place of rendezvous is found trampled out like the threshing- 

 floor of a barn. They nestle in the grass, and lay from three 

 to five eggs, of a shining-green. The mother conducts the 

 young, as soon as they are excluded, like the gallinae. 



These birds generally go alone, or in pairs, except at the 

 season of their departure, when they assemble together. Their 

 flesh, which is black, is a meat in considerable estimation, 

 and the fowlers, in pursuing them, are obliged to have re- 

 course to similar stratagems as with the great bustards. The 

 males may be attracted by means of a stuffed female, the cry 

 of which is imitated. 



The Riiffed Bustard (Otis Houbara) is the same as the 

 " petite outarde huppee d'Afrique," of Buffbn, and forms the 

 second section of M. Temminck in his Manual of Ornithology. 

 It is distinguished by its long bill, depressed at the base. 

 The same author adds, to this essential character, those of 

 having on the head a large tuft of slender feathers, and 

 similar feathers on the sides of the neck, the longest of which 



