454 
BUSTARDS , THICKNEES, AND CRANES. 
to get away by running. They fly with a regular flap of the wings, and 
much faster than they appear to go. I cannot imagine greyhounds being able 
to catch bustards, though there seems to be good authority for believing they 
did.” A full-grown male bustard will weigh from 26 to 30 lbs., or even rather 
more. 
Far inferior in size to its larger relative, the little bustard 
Little Bustard. ^ tetrax) differs by the absence of the moustache in the male, and 
displays a greater diversity between the plumage of the two sexes, as well as a 
seasonal variation in that of the male. In the summer plumage, the latter sex, as 
represented in our illustration, has the general colour of the upper plumage huffish 
LITTLE BUSTARD, IN BREEDING-PLUMAGE (i nat. size). 
brown, vermiculated with black, and two black and two white gorgets on the 
lower neck and breast. On the other hand, the female (which is equal in size to 
her partner) at all seasons, and the male in winter have the head and upper-parts 
streaked and blotched with black, and no black gorgets on the breast. In length 
these birds measure only about 17 inches. 
The little bustard, which is but a rare and generally a winter visitor to 
Britain, is widely spread in suitable localities over Europe and Central Asia, 
ranging in winter to the trans-Indus districts of India and to Northern Africa. 
From Africa these birds migrate to their northern breeding-haunts in vast flocks 
during April, returning in still greater numbers in October, when it is said that in 
crossing the plains to the south of the Caucasus they reach to millions. Although 
