378 



10 



snow falls they leave for Asia Minor, and do not return till March. These birds are sometimes 

 so benumbed by a sudden white frost that they are killed by the natives with sticks — a fact which 

 Pallas also records in his ' Zoographia.' " Mr. A. H. Kiitz also, writing from the Crimea, states 

 that " during severe winters it suffers greatly from hunger. They then go in flocks to the places 

 inhabited by the Tartars, who kill and salt numbers for winter provisions. "When it rains in the 

 evening and freezes during the night they can be caught, as their wings are frozen, and they are 

 unable to fly, besides which they cannot run on the slippery ice which covers every thing. When 

 at Eupatoria I saw flocks flying so low over the town that they could be shot from the streets." 



Menetries says that it is met with in the winter season on the steppes at the foot of the 

 Caucasus and near the Don. In Asia Minor it is usually not uncommon, though in the winter 

 of 1871-72 Dr. Kriiper recorded it as rare. Canon Tristram was told that it is sometimes brought 

 into the market at Jaffa from the Plain of Sharon ; and it is, he states, " still plentiful on the 

 plains of Northern Syria. In North-eastern Africa it does not appear ever to have been met 

 with;" and Loche says that "it only occurs accidentally during migration in Algeria, where 

 formerly it was very common. A few appear about the end of February or the beginning of 

 March, when the severe weather compels it to leave the parts of Europe which it generally 

 inhabits ;" and Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake states that it " is also found in Morocco, as one was 

 shot a few years ago near Tangier ; this I have on the authority of W. K. Green, British Vice- 

 Consul at Tetuan, who himself shot and skinned the bird." 



To the eastward the Bustard occurs as far as Dauria, where Messrs. Dybowski and Parvex 

 met with it common on the steppes of the Onon, but rare at Darasun. Pallas gives the eastern 

 limits of its range as the Lena and the territory of the Baikal ; but, according to Badde, Mr. 

 Maack saw it in the valley of the Uda, in Transbaikal, and again in large numbers on the Bureja 

 steppe, but did not observe it to the eastward of that locality. Von Schrenck writes that the 

 Bustards arrived in Dauria early in March with the Jackdaws. He observed them in the lower 

 part of the Ilja valley; and in 1857 they were numerous in the Udinsk steppe, and further 

 eastward were observed between Bjankina and Nertschinsk Sawod, where they were found at an 

 altitude of 3000 feet in mountainous but thinly wooded localities. He also observed them 

 in the Selenga valley and in the Bargusin steppe. They migrate from the South Transbaikal 

 country in August. Between the Tarei- and the Dalei-Nor, where the elevated steppes of 

 Central Asia are, they are very rare, probably because it is not a grain-growing country. It has 

 also on one occasion, as recorded by Mr. A. O. Hume (Ibis, 1871, p. 404), been met with in 

 India, a specimen having been obtained at Murdan, west of the Indus, on the 23rd of December, 

 1870. 



The Great Bustard frequents open, flat ground, preferring grassy plains or cultivated land, 

 but avoiding localities near human habitations, and places where there are trees and bushes 

 and where it cannot command an uninterrupted view over a large tract of country. It is pecu- 

 liarly wary and shy ; and it is almost impossible to approach it within gun-shot range. Hilly 

 country, and especially mountains, it avoids altogether, and is never met with in the woodlands 

 or forests. It especially frequents cultivated fields, and is often found in those where rape- 

 seed, wheat, and rye have been sown. It passes the night in the open fields, choosing places 

 where it cannot be approached without taking alarm, and is so watchful that it is impossible to 



