338 NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAB XXIII. 1916: 



before the spring approaches. The male of the Little Bustard is strikingly different 

 in winter and summer. In the winter it looks on the upperside almost like the 

 female, though the markings, especially on the wing-coverts, are finer. The breast 

 and abdomen, however, are quite white, without the black bars which are found on 

 the chest and sides of the female, there being only a small patch on each side of 

 the chest of sandy yellowish brown feathers with narrow wavy cross-lines. This 

 dress is assumed during the total moult after the breeding season. In the spring, 

 in March and April, a second but only partial moult takes place. Neither wings 

 nor tail are affected by this, but the whole head and neck, and probably part of 

 the back (? or the whole of it), moult, and thus the lavender-grey, black-and- 

 white colouring of the nuptial dress are assumed. The adult female is alike at 

 all seasons, having only one post-nuptial moult in summer and early autumn. 

 The young birds of both sexes are like the adult female, except that the outer 

 webs of the first primary and the primary coverts have pale rusty markings. 



C— GEOGRAPHICAL FORMS 



The distribution of the Little Bustard is a very wide one, extending from 

 Marocco and Spain to Western Siberia and East Turkestan. If a bird is thus 

 widely spread, we frequently, more often than not, find that two or more sub- 

 species can be distinguished; but there are many cases in which there are no 

 differences between the most eastern and most western birds. In the Little 

 Bustard no attempt had hitherto beeu made to separate various forms, but I 

 find that Eastern and Western birds are separable. 



The Western birds are lighter on the upperside, more sandy and more reddish, 

 especially on the upper wing-coverts ; Eastern specimens darker, less sandy and 

 less reddish, the markings as a rule somewhat coarser. Western birds are also 

 generally slightly larger, the wings of the males measuring 250-258, of the 

 females 250-263 mm. ; Eastern birds : males 236-252, females 245-247 mm. 



Unfortunately series from the breeding season are not available from many 

 places, but as far as I can make out from the available skins, the Western race nests 

 in Marocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Portugal, Spain, and the plains of Beauce, Champagne, 

 Brie, and La Vendee in France, north to the districts between Troyes and Chälons- 

 sur-Marne. In the Zoologist 1906, p. 66, Mr. Benson mentions birds which he 

 saw near Brugg in the Aargau, Switzerland, and which he afterwards, when he 

 looked at the specimens in the Strassbnrg Museum, identified as young Little 

 Bustards. It can hardly be supposed that the species nested there, and its 

 occurrence must have been accidental, if the birds were correctly identified. 

 Doubtless the Bustards which apjsear from time to time in the Rhine districts, 

 rather frequently during the last thirty years, must belong to the Western race. 



The Eastern subspecies nests in West Siberia, eastwards to Kainsk in the 

 Tomsk government, to the Saissan-Nor, Afghanistan and East Turkestan, westwards 

 through Transcaspia, the South Russian steppes to the governments of Kiew, 

 Poltawa, Podolsk, and perhaps Saratow, Samara, and Orenburg, to Greece, 

 Rumania, the valley of the Danube to Austria. I suppose that also the Little 

 Bustards which breed occasionally, though apparently irregularly, in Poland, 

 probably in East and certainly once in West Prussia, in the Mark Brandenburg 

 und Thuringia, as well as those in Sardinia, Sicily, and certainly those that nest 

 in Pnglie and Capitanata, near Foggia, in South Italy, belong to the Eastern race. 



