760 
BIRD-LIFE. 
may be regarded as amongst the most common of birds. 
Our Great Bustard is also to be met -with in the more 
cultivated districts in considerable numbers, thanks to 
the great shyness and cunning by which it manages to 
escape from the clutches of man ! 
This bird has a heavy appearance, though by no means 
plump, but rather muscular and powerful. The adult 
male—with his moustache, inflated throat, and large, 
outspread, fan-shaped tail, carried well up—is worthy 
of the attention universally bestowed upon him: his 
deportment is in the highest degree remarkable, and his 
bearing proud. The female is smaller, and of far more 
modest pretensions. All Bustards vary very much in 
weight and measurements, according to their age and sex. 
A very old male, of the species we are now describing, 
will measure three feet six inches from the tip of 
the beak to the end of the tail, and from wing to wing 
eight feet; while its weight may reach as high as thirty- 
two, and on some occasions as much as thirty-eight, 
pounds, though as a rule it does not exceed from twenty- 
two to twenty-four pounds. The adult female usually 
weighs from a fourth to a third less than the male, and 
measures sometimes two feet nine inches in length, by 
six feet across the wings ; her weight being scarcely more 
than twelve pounds. The plumage of the Great Bustard 
is, on the upper parts, yellowish, with the feathers edged 
with black; the under parts are of a pale clay-colour ; 
the head, upper portion of the breast, and a strip of the 
wing, are ash-gray; the points of the tail-feathers, and 
some of those of the wing, are white, while the pinion- 
feathers are black; the decorative insignia of the male are 
wanting in the female. The male is furnished with a 
singular membranous pouch in the throat, a so-called 
