MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
657 
captor also informed me that he and a companion were on 
Costessey Common, the previous afternoon about three o’clock, 
when he saw the bird in an adjoining barley stubble held, it 
was racing the Crows (Rooks) about (all local people call Rooks 
Crows) ; in this particular incident also I feel sure lie must be 
mistaken, it being probably the reverse, and that the Rooks were 
mobbing the Bustard, it, however, soon after took wing and Hew 
direct over him as lie lay behind the hedge, at about twenty-five 
yards distance, when he fired at it (his gun being loaded with 
No. 5 shot), bringing it to earth by smashing one wing, — on 
examining the bird he seemed to me to have given it the contents 
of the second barrel. It had probably commenced to run after 
tho first shot, and its captor to make sure of it fired again, 
shooting it through the head ; the bird was (so 1 was afterwards 
informed) exhibited at the village public-house, examined, and 
commented upon ; and 1 am inclined to think myself very lucky 
in securing the bird in a perfect state, without the loss of any of 
its beautiful plumage, as many people take interest only in 
beautiful birds by plucking its feathers out for ornamentation. 
In cleaning and examining the plumage of the bird, I found the 
basal portion of its feathers, and the intervening coating of down, 
of a lovely rose-pink colour. I have previously noticed in 
examples of the Great Bustard this same colouring, which would 
quickly fade Mere it not protected from the light, therefore the 
same rose-tints are still retained in specimens, even after they have 
been preserved a great number of years ; I found this to be the 
case with three fine examples (two adult males and a female) that 
1 reset in position a few years ago, and which M’ere killed on 
Salisbury Plain about the year 1S22. Although Yarrell and 
other authors notice this rose-tint in the under feathers of this 
species, no intimation had previously been given, that I am aware 
of, that it exists in the plumage of the Lesser Bustard, Otis tefrax. 
until I recorded the fact that it did so. I have examined three or 
four fresh-killed Norfolk specimens of that species, and made 
remarks on the circumstance, in a paper 1 read at the Science 
Gossip Club, in 1875, and published in the ‘Zoologist’ for that 
year, page 4340. Whether or not this rose-tint prevails in that of 
the Third British Species, the Macqueen’s Bustard, 1 am unable to 
sav. 
