THE HOUBARA, 21 



party, flushing them like so many Pheasants out of a dense 

 turnip field, with buckwheat lines, along a cover side. 



I have occasionally seen them in wheat, barley, and other grain 

 fields, but only when these were young and tender. 



Very large bags of Houbara are sometimes made. In the 

 western parts of the Sirsa district, in years in which they are 

 plentiful (for the numbers that visit us are variable, dependent 

 on the rainfall further west), any man could shoot twenty in a 

 day ; and General Marston, while Superintendent of Police in 

 the Kurrachee district, shot, I believe, forty-eight (and some 

 people say fifty-eight) on one occasion. 



Both in Sind and in the Punjab natives often hawk them, but 

 they afford but little sport ; and, so far as my personal experience 

 goes, generally drop so sharp into cover that the Falcon as a 

 rule stoops in vain. 



Two or three times I have seen them nobly struck by wild 

 Bonelli's Eagles, and wounded birds are often struck by other 

 Eagles, notably the common vindhiana. 



This SPECIES does not breed in India Proper, though it does 

 in Affghanistan, and (though I believe sparingly), in the highlands 

 of Beluchistan. I have never seen an egg, and have no 

 authentic account of its nidification. It doubtless, as Kabulis 

 have told me, lays in some small depression in the soil, two or three 

 eggs, very similar to, probably (except for their somewhat smaller 

 size) undistinguishable from those of the African bird, which 

 are broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards each end, "olivace- 

 ous brown, tolerably regularly marked with somewhat blurred 

 broad dashes of darker brown, and here and there spotted 

 with clear blackish brown," measuring from 2*3 to 25 in 

 length, by 175 to 1*9 in breadth. 



JERDON SUGGESTED that the ruff and crest might in this species 

 be peculiar to the male, and the former only seasonal ; but, 

 as I pointed out long ago {Ibis, 1868), both these are 

 equally possessed by both sexes at all seasons, though both 

 are more developed in the male than in the female. The young- 

 est birds I have seen had a few short crest feathers and a small, 

 but very apparent, ruff. 



The sexes, except as regards length of ruff and crest, are 

 nearly alike in plumage, though the female is a little lighter 

 in colour ; the chief difference consists in the size, the males 

 being considerably larger. 



The adult males measure as follows : — 



Length, 28 to 30*25; expanse, 51-5 to 5775; wing, 15 

 to 1&1 ; tail from vent, 8*5 to 1025 ; tarsus, 3-4 to 3*9 ; bill 

 from gape, 2-3 to 2*4. Weight, 4 to 5^ lbs. Sir John Malcolm, 

 in his Sketches of Persia, states that a Houbara killed before 



