GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. loi 



great grain lands which extend in some parts of Asia for 

 thousands of miles, treeless and bare, where the noble bird can 

 scan a wide horizon and note the approach of enemies. The 

 Great Bustard is a thorough ground bird, and is rarely or never 

 seen near trees. It is a shy and wary creature, ever careful not 

 to allow a close approach, is capable of running quickly, and 

 flies in a somewhat heavy, laboured manner with slow and regular 

 beats of its ample wings. At all seasons the Great Bustard is a 

 social bird, but in winter it becomes more or less gregarious, and 

 joins into flocks which wander about the plains in quest of food. 

 It is said that during winter the sexes separate, and that the 

 males live in flocks by themselves. Even during the breeding 

 season several pairs of birds will feed in company, and all the 

 summer the immature and non-breeding birds remain gregarious. 

 The food of the Great Bustard is almost entirely composed of 

 vegetable substances, grain, seeds, and the leaves and shoots of 

 herbage ; the bird, however, also eats insects, mice, lizards, and 

 frogs. The note of the male is likened by Mr. Seebohm to the 

 syllable J>runt ; and he also states that, when alarmed, both sexes 

 make a kind of hiss, although at other times the female appears 

 to be a remarkably silent bird. 



Nidification. — Although the Great Bustard has been said to 

 be polygamous, there appears to be no direct evidence in con- 

 firmation of the statement; and Naumann, the great German 

 ornithologist, who had ample opportunities of observing this 

 species, avers that it pairs early in spring. The nesting season 

 begins in May, and the eggs are laid towards the end of that 

 month. The nest is sometimes made in a bare situation on the 

 open steppe, or in a field of growing corn. It is little more than 

 a slight hollow trampled by the female, which in some cases 

 is lined with a few scraps of dry herbage, and is about eighteen 

 inches across. The eggs are generally two in number, but some- 

 times three, and vary from olive-green to olive-brown and pale 

 bufif in ground colour, spotted and blotched with reddish brown 

 and gray. On some specimens a few blackish brown streaks 

 occur. Like the eggs of the Crane they are rather coarse in 

 texture, and the shell is full of minute pores. They measure on 

 an average 3"o inches in length by 2*2 inches in breadth. The 



