14 THE GREAT INDIAN BUSTARD. 



the bushes. The driver went on and got round on the opposite 

 side of the birds, and gradually drove them just like so many 

 deer. 



" Lying flat, I could hear their loud calls getting nearer and 

 nearer, until at last, when I jumped up, I found myself in the 

 middle of the flock, getting an easy right and left, and wound- 

 ing a third badly, which I afterwards picked up. 



" Sometimes, but rarely, a Bustard will hide itself, or rather 

 imagine it has hid itself, behind a small bush in the plain, allow- 

 ing the sportsman to go round and round it in a gradually 

 narrowing circle until he is within easy range." 



The Great Indian Bustard in Upper India lays mostly in July 

 and August, but the breeding season varies a good deal according 

 to the rainfall, and we have found eggs as early as the first-half of 

 March and as late as the first-half of September. In Southern 

 India, according to Jerdon, they lay during the cold season. 



The eggs are placed on the ground, at the base of some bush or 

 tuft of grass, in a small depression, generally unlined, often thinly 

 lined with a few straggling blades of grass. The situation 

 varies ; sometimes the nest is in an open waste, sparsely 

 dotted with a few herbaceous shrubs, often in the stubble of 

 the giant and bulrush millets, and still more often in clumps 

 and patches of high thatching grass, or the dense soft lemon 

 grass, so characteristic of the favourite haunts alike of this Bus- 

 tard and the Houbara. 



My impression is, that the birds lay only one egg. But 

 sometimes two eggs are found pretty close together, and 

 either the females not unfrequently lay very close to each 

 other, or when a female does lay more than one egg, she 

 deposits the second some little distance away from the first. 

 Khan Nizam-ud-din Khan has taken more than a hundred of 

 these eggs with his own hand, and he never found two eggs 

 side by side. Where, as not unfrequently happens, two are 

 within a yard or two of each other, he believes that they belong 

 to different birds, and that this is a fact he has in one or two 

 cases proved by snaring both females. I have only myself 

 seen five nests, each containing a single egg. I can, therefore, 

 say nothing positive on this subject. 



The eggs vary very much in size and shape. They are 

 all more or less oval, but while some are moderately broad 

 and slightly pointed at one end, others are long ovals, 

 exactly similar at both ends, and others again are long 

 and cylindrical, of the same size and shape as the egg 

 of the great Northern Diver, figured by Mr. Hewitson ; and 

 I have one specimen that, both in colour, shape, and size, might 

 have been the one from which his plate of the egg of the 

 European Bustard was taken. The shells are very thick and 

 strong, closely resembling those of the Sarus in texture, and, 



