592 BRITISH BIRDS. 



of mustard and other crops which yield the oil-seeds of commerce ; less 

 frequently they are said to haunt fields of wheat, barley, and other grain, 

 but only when the plants are small and tender. Its true home is the 

 boundless steppes, where, for miles and miles, the rich vegetation affords 

 it a congenial home, and effectually enables it to elude those enemies 

 which its large size is constantly attracting. 



Hume (Hume and Marshall, 'Game Birds of India') writes : — "By pre- 

 ference the [Indian] Houbara affects the nearly level, though slightly 

 undulating, sandy semi-desert plains, which constitute so important a 

 feature in the physical geography of Western India. Plains, semi-desert 

 indeed, but yet affording in places thin patches, in places a continuous sea, 

 of low scrubby cover, in which the dwarf Zizyphus (the Ber), the Lana 

 {Anabasis multiflora) , the Booee {^rua bovii), various Salsolas, stunted 

 Acacia-bushes, and odorous tufts of lemon-grass are conspicuous. 



" Here the Houbara trots about early and late, squatting under the 

 shade of some bush during the sunniest hours of the day, feeding very 

 largely on the small fruit of the Ber, or the berries of the Grewia, or the 

 young shoots of the lemon-grass, and other herbs ; now picking up an ant 

 or two, now a grasshopper or beetle, and now a tiny land-shell or stone, 

 but living chiefly as a vegetarian, and never with us, to judge from the 

 hundreds I have examined, feeding on lizards, snakes, and the like, as the 

 Great Bustard certainly does, and the African Houbara is said to do. 



" The Houbara greatly prefers running to flying, and when the weather 

 is not too hot will make its way through the labyrinth of little bushes 

 which constitute its home at a really surprising pace. So long as the 

 cover is low, its neck and body are held as low as possible ; but as soon as 

 it gets where it thinks it cannot be seen, it pulls up, and raising its head 

 as high as possible, takes a good look at its pursuers. Not unfrequently 

 it then concludes to squat, and though you may have been, unobserved, 

 watching it carefully, whilst it was only watching others of the party 

 coming from an opposite direction, it becomes absolutely invisible the 

 moment it settles down at the" foot of a bush or stone. Once it has thus 

 settled, especially if it is hot and about noon, you may walk past it within 

 ten yards without flushing it, if you walk carelessly and keep looking in 

 another direction. But it is weary work trudging on foot, under an Indian 

 sun, after birds that run as these can and will, and in the districts where 

 they are plentiful, people always either hawk them or shoot them from 

 camels." 



Macqueen's Bustard is often hawked by the natives, but it is said to 

 afi'ord little sport, because it so soon drops into cover and thus eludes the 

 Falcon. The above-named writer thus describes the chase of the Houbara 

 by the aid of the camel :— " Taking the camel at a long, easy, six miles an 

 hour trot, across one of those vast wildernesses they aflPect, you will not 



