ORDER GRALL.E. 455 



are four inches, and capable of being spread out. Gmelin 

 and Latham have given, as a separate species from this, 

 another bustard, known in Barbary under the name of 

 Rhaad ; but Temminck has united them as one species. 

 Our figure is of a young male bird ; the top of the head, 

 cheeks, back, wings, and tail, are light dun ; the elon- 

 gated feather, down the side, and under the neck, and the 

 lunated marks, nearly black : the crest in the specimen was 

 merely incipient from non-age. 



It is said that the name of Rhaad, which signifies thunder, 

 is given in consequence of the noise which it makes in shoot- 

 ing from the ground ; and that its other name, Saf-saf, is an 

 imitation of the sound of its wings in flying. 



These birds are found in Barbary, in Arabia, in Turkey, 

 and are birds of accidental passage in Spain and Silesia. 

 Those which have been met in Numidia, towards the con- 

 fines of the desert, live on insects and the young buds of 

 plants. They are equally cunning and distrustful with the 

 bustards of our own climates. 



Major Taylor, who has seen in the environs of Bassora, 

 bustards of the species houbara, by him called hybarra, says, 

 in his travels, that the colour of the bird is a cinnamon- 

 brown ; that it is regarded as the best game of the country ; 

 that its flight is slow ; and that it trusts more to its craft and 

 swiftness in running, than to its wings. The Arabs sometimes 

 follow it for half a day, and can approach it with great diffi- 

 culty, and by no means within a short distance. 



Of the Otis Denhami, a new species, of which the opposite 

 is a figure, a specific description is inserted in the text. 



We pass to the Plovers, beginning with the sub-genus 



OEniCNEMUS. 



This name literally signifies swelled leg, and was given 

 by Belon to a bird commonly known under that of the great 

 plover, or land or stone curlew, and was generally classed 



