264 Unexplored Spain 
quite accidental and exceptional circumstances. And even then 
(as indicated) the knowledge of their precise position has seldom 
availed to their undoing. 
By April the males have assumed a splendidly handsome 
breeding-dress. The neck, swollen out like a jargonelle pear, is 
clad in rich velvet-black, the long plumes behind glossy and 
hackle-like, and adorned with a double gorget of white. All this 
finery is lost by August. Thenceforward the sexes are alike save 
for the larger size and brighter orange of the males, the females 
being smaller and yellower. They are strictly monogamous, yet 
the males “show-off” in the same fantastic way as great bustard 
and blackcock. About mid-May the female lays four (rarely 
five) glossy olive-green eges in the thick covert of thistles or 
palmettos. 
In summer the food of the little bustard consists of snails 
and small grasshoppers, and on the table they are excellent, the 
breast being large and prominent and displaying both dark and 
white flesh—the latter, however, being confined to the legs. 
