The following is the description of this bird given by Mr. Selby :—The male has the bill strong, grayish-white ; the under mandible palest. Head, nape of- the neck, and ear-coverts, bluish-gray. A streak of black passes along the crown of the head, reaching to the occiput. Chin-feathers and moustaches composed of long wiry feathers, with the barbs disunited and short. Fore part of the neck clothed with a naked bluish-black skin, extending upwards toward the ear-coverts, and covering the gular pouch. Sides of the neck white, tinged with gray ; lower part of the neck fine reddish-orange. At the setting on of the neck, or between the shoulders, is a space destitute of feathers, but covered with a soft gray down. Scapulars buff-orange, barred and spotted with black. Back, rump, and tail-coverts, reddish-orange, barred and variegated with black. Greater coverts and sonic of the secondaries bluish-gray, passing towards the tips into grayish-white. Quills brownish-hlack, with their shafts white. Tail-feathcre white at their bases, passing towards the middle into brownish-orange, with one or two black bars ; the tips often white, and, when the feathers are spread laterally, forming a segment of a circle. Upper part of the breast reddish-orange; lower part, belly, and vent, white. begs black, covered with round scales. Irides reddish-brown. Tho pos session of a gular pouch by these birds, which was first recorded by Dr. Douglass, seems to be a mistake, as 11r. Yarrell in dissecting a male bustard hits failed to detect this organ. The average length of a male is 3 feet 3 inches.
The female has the head and forepart of the neck of a deeper gray, and without the moustaches. Back of the lower part of the neck rsIdiah-orange. The other parte of the plumage similar to that of the other sex. Size seldom more than one-third of that of the male.
The young at a mouth old are covered with a buff-coloured down, barred upon the back, wings, and sides with black.
With regard to its distribution, Selby says, " It is found in some provinces of France and in parts of Germany and Italy. It is com mon in Russia and on the extensive plains of Tartary." Temminck states that it inhabits some departments of France, of Italy, and Germany : that it is less abundant towards the north than in the south ; and that it is very rarely and accidentally found in Holland. Graves relates that the species is ilispersed over the southern parts of Europe, and the more parts of Africa, to d i' very Abundant in some parts of Spain and Portugal. In our own islands. the increase of population and civilisation, followed by greater demands on the land, and consequently by an extension of cultivated surface, have so reduced the Bustards, that unless care be taken to preserve the few wbich remain, they will noon be numbered among the other extinct species of our Fauna. The following are notices of the old British localities of these noble birds. "They are called," says Willughby, "by the Scots Gusearchr, as I lector Boethius witnes aeth in thew words:—In March, a province of Scotland, are birds bred, called in the vulgar dialect Guotardev, the colour of whose feathers and their flealt is not unlike the partridges, but the bulk of their body exceeds the swans." The editor of the last edition of
Pennant states that in Sir Robert Sibbald's time, they were found in the Mere, but that be believes that they are now extinct in Scotland. Willughby also says (1678), "On Newmarket and Royston Ileaths, in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, and elsewhere, in wastes and plaine they are found with us" Ray (1713) thus writes:—" In campis apationis circa ,ovum NIcreatum (Newmarket) et Royston, oppide in agro Cantabrigienni, inque plataitie, ut audio, Salisburiensi, et alibi in vastia et apertis lochs, invenitur." In Brookes'm Ornithology' (1701) the following passage occurs :—" This bird (the bunted) is bred in several parts of Europe, and particularly in England, especially on Salisbury Plain, Newmarket and Royston Heaths, in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk ; for it delights in large ope. :lnees. The flesh is in high esteem, and perhaps the more so because it is not very easy to come at." Pennant nays, "These binie inhabit most of the open countries of the south and east part.; of this island from Dorsetehire as far as the Wolds in Yorkshire." The editor of the last edition (1812) observes that " the breed is now nearly extirpated, except on the Downs of Wiltshire, where it is also very scarce." The figure of the male bird given by Graves is said to have been drawn from one taken alive on Salisbury Plain in 1797. Montagu in his ' Dictionary' (1802) says that in this locality it had become very rare from the great price given for the eggs and young to hatch and rear in confinement. In his ' Supplement' (1813) he states that not one had been seen there for two or three years previous. Graves says that, in the spring of 1814, he saw five birds on the extensive plains between Thetford and Brandon, in Norfolk, from which neighbourhood in 1819 he received a single egg, which had been found in a large warren. In the autumn of 1819, he adds, a large male bird which had been surprised by a dog on Newmarket Heath, was sold in Leadenhall Market for five guineas; and in the same year, he continues, a female was captured under similar cireuno stances on one of the moors in Yorkshire. When the mania for real British specimens of births was prevalent, the bustards antlered not a little. We know a collector who, about the year 1316, had nine dead bustards before him together : they came from Norfolk. in 1830 a young male was shot on Shelford Common, in Cambridgeshire, and in 1832 a specimen was killed at Caxton in the same county. In 1843 one was shot in Cornwall on 2111 open plain between Ilelston and the Lizard Point. It is very certain, from these notices, that this bird is becoming every day more rare in England, and will probably soon be wholly absent from its Fauna.