BUSTARD, the English name of a Bird belonging to the genus Otis. The species are land-birds whose proper position in the orni thological system bars caused some embarrassment to zoologists. Temminck places the genus Otis under his twelfth order, Cursores (Runners), observing that the genera Struthio, Rhea, and Cassuarius ought to stand at the head of that order. Cuvier arranges the Bustards under the Pressirostres, his second family of his fifth order (Echassiers,—Grallcs, Linn.) of birds, between the Cassowaries on one side and aNienesim (Thick-Kneed Bustard or Stone Curlew) on the other. Temminck makes Cursorius immediately succeed it, and observes that among the species of that genus the passage between Otis and Cursorius may be possibly found. It appears that the Bustards partake of the organisation of the Struthious, Gallinaceous, and Wading Birds (Echassicrs,— Grallatores). Rhea, without alluding to the Dodo on the Struthious side, ailicnemus on that of the Plovers, and the Turkey on the side of the Gallinaceous birds, make near approaches to the genus under consideration ; while the cariama of Brisep (1licrodactylus of Geoffroy, Dicholophus of Illiger), a South American form, seems to be one of its nearest representatives on the new continent. [Qaaiesia.1 Vigors places the genus in his family Struthionidie (order Rasores), which occupies a position between the Cracider and the Tel while it approximates to the Gruidce and Charadriadee in the order Grallatorcs ; and, taking all the circum stances into consideration, this seems to be the best arrangement hitherto proposed.
The Bustards live generally in open countries, preferring plains or wide-spreading extensive downs dotted with low bushes and under wood—localities which give them an opportunity of descrying their enemy from afar. They are said to fly but rarely, running from danger with exceeding swiftness, and using their wings like the ostriches to accelerate their course. When they do take wing their flight is low, and they skim along the ground with a sufficiently rapid and sustained flight. Their food consists of vegetables, insects, worms, grain, and seeds. They are polygamous, one male living with many females, which, after fecundation, live solitary. Temminck says that it would seem that they moult twice a year, and that the males in the greatest number of species differ from the females in having extraordinary ornaments, and in possessing a more variegated plumage. He further observes that the young males wear the garb
of the female during the first and second year, and adds his suspicion that the males in winter have the same plumage as the females. Cuvicr notices their massy port and the slightly arched and vaulted upper mandible of their beak, which, with the little webs or palma tions between the bases of their toes, recal the form of the Gallinaceous birds ; but he adds that the nudity of the lower part of their legs, all their anatomy, and even the flavour of their flesh, place them among the Grallatores, and that, as they have no hind toe, their smallest species approach nearly to the Plovers.
The following is the character of the genus : Bill of the length of the head or shorter, straight, conical, com pressed, or lightly depressed at the base ; point of the upper mandible a little arched (vout*e.) Nostrils ova], open, approximated, distant from the base.
Feet long, naked above the knee ; three front toes short, united at their base, bordered by membranes.
Wings moderate, the third quill longest in each wing.
They are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa ; but not iu America.
0. tarda, the Great Bustard, is the Otis and Avis tarda of Mon and others ; Ostarde, Houtarde, Outarde, Bistarde of the French ; Starda and Starda Commune of the Italians ; Der Grosse Trappe, Trapp, Trappgans, and Ackentrapp of the Germans ; Abutarda (Avis tarda) of the Spaniards ; and Gustard of the old Scotch.
From passages in the 'History of Animals' (ii. 17, vi. 6), there can be scarcely a doubt that our Great Bustard is Aristotle's 'hits. Indeed the doubts originated in a misunderstood passage in the thirty-third chapter of his ninth book ; and it is clear from several authorities that the bird and the quality of its flesh were well known to the Greeks. Pliny evidently alludes to these birds as those "quay Hispania ayes tardas appe]lat, Gracia °tides" (' Nat. Hist.' x. 22) ; though he blunders about the flesh, telling an absurd story of its effects, which arises from his confounding the eurtg with Aristotle's elr6s, an owl.