385 



and Gould, was really killed in Norfolk, as set forth in Gray's list (part iii.), or that it can be the 

 one alluded to in the ' Zoologist,' p. 2242." 



In Scandinavia it has been met with on several occasions ; and Nilsson states that it occa- 

 sionally occurs in Sweden, both in the south and also in the northern parts of the peninsula. 

 Linnaeus included it in his ' Fauna Suecica,' without stating where it had been obtained. A 

 specimen is in Stockholm labelled as having been procured in Upland, on the farm of Wasa, in 

 May 1804; and one was obtained alive at Ekerod, in Skane, in the autumn of 1803, and kept in 

 captivity for some time by Lieut. -Col. Rosenkrantz. According to Mr. Mesch a young male was 

 killed in the autumn on Ramsele Fell, in Angermanland. It has not occurred in Finland ; but 

 regarding its range in Central Russia Mr. Sabanaeff writes that, according to Prince W. W. 

 Wiazemski, the Little Bustard was killed about twenty years ago in the Skopinsk district, 

 Government of Riazan. Daniloff states that it occurs in the Government of Orloff during 

 migration. Severtzoff met with it breeding in the Government of Voronege ; and Bogdanoff 

 saw it in the Bouin district, Government of Kazan. 



Mr. Taczanowski kindly informs us that " this bird occurs but accidentally and rarely in 

 Poland in autumn or at the beginning of the winter : isolated individuals usually appear ; and I 

 only know of one instance when a flock of several individuals was observed, near Lowicz, in 

 1870 ; and three out of this flock were killed. In the Museum at Warsaw there is a young male 

 which I killed near that city, and a female killed in the Government of Lublin." Mr. Nicholas 

 Arcibascheff, in his notes on an ornithological journey to the banks of the Sarpa in 1858 (Bull. Soc. 

 Imp. de Moscou, 1859, no. 3, p. 70), says " during the breeding-season the male has in the throat a 

 pouch, differing, however, somewhat from that of the Great Bustard ; it is, moreover, closer to the 

 head, and is a body that forms a sort of pad. During the pairing-season the male chooses a 

 small hillock where he comes daily and, jumping about, utters a harsh cry like tree tree, which, 

 though not loud, may be heard some distance. The Russian peasants know this habit of the 

 bird, and easily ascertaining which hillock the bird frequents, place snares on it, into which the 

 bird rushes, and seldom escapes being caught." The naturalists who have observed the habits 

 of this bird in different parts of Russia do not agree as to the number of eggs it lays. Mr. 

 Arcibascheff says that it lays from two to four in the month of April ; whereas Mr. Aksakoff, in 

 his hunter's notes in the Government of Orenburg, 1868, states that he has found nine eggs. 

 According to this latter author, the female makes her nest in an open situation on the steppe, 

 generally at the foot of a bunch of grass ; the nest is flat, composed of dry grass intermixed with 

 feathers of the bird itself. He further says that the female sits so close that on one occasion 

 when pursuing a wounded bird he trod on and killed another female Little Bustard sitting on 

 nine eggs. Skinder, who procured the eggs for the late Mr. Tyzenhauz in Bessarabia and the 

 Crimea, states positively that this bird lays from eight to twelve eggs. Aksakoff writes that in 

 the Orenburg steppes these birds collect in large flocks of as many as fifty pairs in the autumn, 

 and frequent by choice the cultivated fields and places where the steppe has been mown over. 

 In the Ukraine, where formerly it was very common, it is by degress becoming rare. 



According to Borggreve, during the last ten years there have been occui'rences recorded from 

 the far south-west to the extreme north-eastern parts of Germany. He himself procured an 



G 



