2 THE GREAT BUSTARD. 



but I apprehend that only small parties will ever be found 

 to straggle within our limits, and I do not expect that they 

 will ever prove to extend their wanderings east of the Indus. 



Of their habits, I personally know nothing ; but as described 

 by European writers, they are precisely similar to those of our 

 Great Indian Bustard. 



Our single Indian specimen had fed entirely on green mustard 

 leaves; and I may note that, according to all authorities, it chiefly 

 feeds on grain and leaves, though also eating insects, and does not 

 appear to be ever the coarse feeder that its Indian ally is. 



Of COURSE, they never would breed within our limits. In 

 Europe they lay about the end of May, sometimes two, some- 

 times, it is said, three eggs. These eggs are placed in a slight 

 depression in the soil, usually in some grain field, often unlined, 

 at times thinly lined with straws or grass. They closely resem- 

 ble some varieties of the eggs of the Great Indian Bustard, being 

 " light brownish olive, or dull olive green, smudged and 

 blotched with more or less distinctly defined dark brown 

 blotches and irregular spots,"* but do not seem to vary nearly 

 to the same extent in colour as do those of our Indian bird. 

 Dresser gives the size often as 3*075 to 3*47 inches in length, 

 and 2*075 to 2' 1 8 in breadth. 



OUR ONE Indian specimen, which was a female, was measured in 

 the flesh by Dr. Johnson, who also recorded the colours of the 

 soft parts. It measured : — Length, 33 inches ; expanse, 63 ; wing, 

 18*25 ; tail from vent, 8*5 ; tarsus, 4*5 ; the greatest length 

 of the foot was 2*5 ; and its greatest width, 275. It weighed 

 8*25lbs. The legs and feet were brown; bill lavender; irides 

 bright brown. 



The males are very much larger ; they average 45 inches in 

 length; wing, 26; tail, 1 1 ; and tarsi, &2 ; and they weigh at times, 

 as Montagu says, and Irby [B. of Gibraltar, p. 149) confirms this 

 statement, fully 3oft>s. 



The Plate, though stiff and inartistic, gives a tolerably 

 good general idea of the bird ; but it must not be supposed 

 that the scales on the legs are the enormous things depicted by 

 the artist (who probably had the back of a scaly Pangolin in 

 his mind's eye when he drew them). Instead of only three, there 

 are about ten rows of scales on the sides of the tarsi, and none 

 of these scales are particularly prominent ; neither bill nor legs 

 are quite rightly coloured. The plate represents a male ; the 

 female wants the rufous pectoral band, as also the conspicuous 

 whiskers of the male. In other respects the plumage of the 

 sexes is very similar. 



* Dresser. 



