102 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



the swollen breast. Some males, but not all, of this species have an inflatable 

 gular pouch, which appears to be used either for the utterance of a singular note 

 or for increasing the size of the throat and rendering the covering of feathers 

 more imposing. This display is accompanied by various movements. 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 buif in ground- 

 colour, spotted and blotched with reddish-brown and grey. 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 3'0 inches in length by 2'2 inches in breadth. The female alone appears 

 to incubate the eggs, the time taken ranging from three weeks to a month. At 

 the approach of danger she slips very quietly off the nest, and hurries away for a 

 little distance on foot, especially when the cover is dense, but sometimes she 

 rises from it into the air and flies slowly away. During the breeding season, 

 especially about the pairing period, the males are very pugnacious. One brood 

 only is reared in the year, and the young are soon able to quit the nest and 

 follow their parents. Several instances of the Great Bustard breeding in cap- 

 tivity have been recorded. Details of one of these instances are given in the 

 Zoologist ioT 1880 (p. 254), and were originally published in the Bull. Soc. Imp. 

 Acclim. Paris, 1861 (p. 318). A second instance occurred in the Gardens of the 

 Zoological Society of London, in June, 1893. In the former case three eggs 

 were laid, the hen incubated, and one young bird was hatched ; in the latter two 

 eggs were laid, and the cock bird was not observed to take any share in the task 

 of incubation {Ibis, 1893, p. 476). A female again laid in the Zoological Gardens 

 in the season of 1895. The flesh of the Great Bustard is by no means unpalat- 

 able, especially that of the female and the young. An old male will often weigh 

 over thirty pounds. 



Diagnostic cliaracters — Otis, with the head grey, and a tuft of white 

 bristly feathers at the base of the bill, the upper parts chestnut-buff barred with 

 black, the wings white, except the primaries, which are blackish-brown, the 

 breast banded with chestnut and grey, the belly white. Length, about 45 inches 

 (male). In the female the bristles and chest bands are absent. Length, about 

 33 inches. According to Mr. Howard Saunders this bird is incapable of flight 

 when moulting its quills. 



