tely object, and when on the wing, to which it readily
takes, its flight is powerful and sustained. The bill is of moderate
length, but, owing to the exceedingly flat head of the bird, appears longer
than it really is. The neck, especially of the male in the breeding-season,
is thick, and the tail, in the same sex at that time of year, is generally
carried in an upright position, being, however, in the paroxysms of
courtship turned forwards, while the head and neck are simultaneously
reverted along the back, the wings are lowered, and their shorter feathers
erected. In this posture, which has been admirably portrayed by Joseph Wolf
(_Zool. Sketches_, pl. 45), the bird presents a very strange appearance,
for the tail, head and neck are almost buried amid the upstanding feathers
before named, and the breast is protruded to a remarkable extent. The
bustard is of a pale grey on the neck and white beneath, but the back is
beautifully barred with russet and black, while in the male a band of deep
tawny-brown--in some examples approaching a claret-colour--descends from
either shoulder and forms a broad gorget on the breast. The secondaries and
greater wing-coverts are white, contrasting vividly, as the bird flies,
with the black primaries. Both sexes have the ear-coverts somewhat
elongated--whence doubtless is derived the name _Otis_ (Gr. [Greek:
otis])--and the male is adorned with a tuft of long, white, bristly plumes,
springing from each side of the base of the mandible. The food of the
bustard consists of almost any of the plants natural to the open country it
loves, but in winter it will readily forage on those which are grown by
man, and especially coleseed and similar green crops. To this vegetable
diet much animal matter is added when occasion offers, and from an
earthworm to a field-mouse little that lives and moves seems to come amiss
to its appetite.

Though not many birds have had more written about them than the bustard,
much is unsettled with regard to its economy. A moot point, which will most
likely always remain undecided, is whether the British race was migratory
or not, though that such is the habit of the species in most parts of the
European continent is beyond dispute. Equally uncertain as yet is the
question whether it is polygamous or not--the evidence being perhaps in
favour of its having that nature. But one of the most singular properties
of the bird is the presence in some of the fully-grown males of