RUFFED BUSTARD. 103 



with patches of a darker brown. They measure two inches in length by one inch and 

 a half in breadth. 



The breeding plumage of the adult male is as follows: — "The beak, brown; the hides, 

 golden yellow; the top of the head, pale chesnut, mottled with black; cheeks, ear coverts, 

 the front and sides of the neck, bluish gray, bounded inferiorly by a border of black 

 passing to the back of the neck; below this a narrow white ring all round the neck, 

 and below this a broad collar of black, with a gorget of white, and another of black at 

 the bottom of the neck in front. Shoulders, back, scapulars, tertials, and upper tail 

 coverts, pale chesnut brown, streaked irregularly with numerous narrow lines of black; 

 all the wing coverts, and the base of the primaries, white; the distal half of the primaries, 

 grayish black ; the secondaries patched with black and white ; the base of the tail feathers, 

 white, the ends mottled with black and buffy white, crossed with two narrow bars of 

 black, the extreme tips white. The breast, and all the under surface of the body, white ; 

 legs, toes, and claws, clay brown." 



"The males that are killed in the winter half-year, have the feathers of the neck of 

 a pale chesnut, streaked with black, like the same part in the female, which does not 

 change with the season." 



"The adidt female has the head and neck mottled and streaked with black on a ground 

 of pale chesnut; the chin, white; the neck below without any appearance of transverse 

 bars at any season. The wing coverts have less white than those of the males ; the white 

 feathers on the breast, sides, and flanks, are marked with short transverse bars of black. 

 Females in other respects resemble the males." — Yarrell. 



The weight of the male is about one pound fourteen ounces ; the female about the same. 



The length of one shot on Berry Down, in the parish of Lanreath, Cornwall, on Sep- 

 tember 23rd., 1831, is stated by Mr. J. Couch, to have been eighteen inches from the 

 bill to the tail, and nineteen inches and a half from the bill to the toes. The expanse 

 of the wings was two feet eleven inches. 



EUFFED BUSTARD- Macqueen's Bustard, (Otis Macqueenii.) 



This very handsome bird has occurred but once in this country, or, as far as we 

 are aware, in Europe. Its natural habitat appears to be the extensive plains of Central 

 Asia. The specimen referred to was shot by Mr. George Hansley, at Kirton Lindsey, in 

 Lincolnshire, on the 7th. of October, 1847, and fell into the hands of Mr. Alfred Roberts, 

 then of Brigg, but now of Scarborough; it then came into the possession of E. T. Higgins, 

 Esq., of York, and is now in the Rudston collection of British Birds, in the Museum 

 of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. 



We do not give a figure of this bird, as from its extreme rarity, and extra European 



