Bustard.

THIS singular Bird is the largest of the Land Fowl in our Island, the male weighing from twenty five to thirty pounds, the length near four feet, the breadth nine; its characters are various, some which connect it with Birds of the Gallinaceous kind, others which seem to belong to the Ostrich and Cassowary. Its bill is strong, and rather convex, its eyes red, head and neck ash coloured; on each side of the lower bill is a tuft of feathers, from five to nine inches long, the back is barred transversely, with black and bright rust colour, the greater quill feathers are brown, the belly white, the tail consists of twenty feathers, the middle ones are rust colour barred with black; those on each side are white, the legs are long, naked above the knees, and dusky; it has no hind toe, its nails are short, strong, and convex, both above and below; and the bottom of the foot is furnished with a callous prominence, which serves instead of a heel.

The female is about half the size of the male, the crown of the head is of a deep orange, crossed with transverse black lines; the rest of the head is brown, the lower part of the foreside of the neck is ashcoloured; the female wants the tuft on each side the head. In the rest of the plumage she resembles the male, except that the colours of the back and wings are more dull; the male has however an essential distinction, being furnished with a pouch, capable of containing near seven pints of water, the entrance being immediately under the tongue; Dr. Douglass first discovered this singular reser

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The size of the female is sometimes larger, for on the 29th September 1800, Mr. Crouch, of Burford, shot a Hen Bustard on Salisbury Plain, which measured from tip to tip of the wings full six feet, and upwards of three feet from the point of the beak to the extremity of the tail; perhaps this unusual size was the result of age. This Bird was killed at the distance of forty yards with a common fowling piece, and with such shot as is generally used for Partridge shooting. There were two other Bustards in company with the one shot, neither of which appeared to be hurt.

voir, which the Bird is supposed to fill with water, as a supply in those dreary plains, where it is accustomed to wander; this is of use also to the female while sitting, which is generally at a distance from water, or for the young, until they can leave the nest. A further use of it has been observed at Morocco, where they fly the Hawk at the Bustard; on the attack of the Hawk, it has been known that the Bustard has spirted out the water against the assailant, and has by this means baffled the pursuit of its enemy *.

The Bustard makes no nest, but scratching a hole in some dry field, drops two eggs upon the ground, as big as those of a Goose, and of a pale olive brown, sprinkled with small dark spots, resembling the brown colour of the plumage. The female sometimes leaves her eggs in quest of food; during her absence, should any one handle, she immediately abandons them. The Bustard feeds on corn and vegetables, and upon those large earth worms that appear in great quantities on the Downs before sun-rising in the summer; these are replete with moisture, answer the purpose of liquids, and enable them to live long without drinking on these dry and extensive tracts, and without having recourse to the admirable magazine before mentioned; like the Ostrich, it swallows small stones, bits of metal, &c. BUFFON relates that in the stomach of one opened by the Academicians, there were found, (besides small stones,) to the number of ninety doubloons, all worn and polished by the attrition of the stomach, but without any appearance of erosion.

Bustards were formerly more frequent in this island than at present, these Birds inhabit most of the open countries of the south and east, from Dorsetshire as far as the Wolds in Yorkshire. In France they are seen in the Spring; in England, are in greatest numbers in Autumn,

Has it ever been tried, or is the experiment worth making, by those Gentlemen who yet continue the sport of Hawking, if it be not practicable to fly at the Bustard in this country? the approach to this Bird by any other mode is most difficult, and it is rarely to be got at within reach of shot, unless by mere accident.

and are now and then met with at that season in large turnip fields, near the Downs, in Wiltshire, in troops of fifty or more. In Sir Robert Sibbold's time they were found in the Mers, but are now supposed to be extinct in Scotland; they keep near their old haunts, seldom wandering above twenty or thirty miles; they run most rapidly, but very slowly take wing; they are sometimes caught with Greyhounds, and the chase is said to afford excellent diversion. In Hungary this bird is so common as sometimes to be seen four or five hundred in a flock.

The Compiler of this account, in returning out of the Fens in the dusk of the evening from Snipe shooting, some years since, shot at a Bustard which flew very low over his head; he did not at the time know what bird it was; and although the gun was charged with very small shot, the bird, from the short distance when struck, was so wounded, as to be caught by a Shepherd within three hundred yards of the place the morning after. This bird weighed nearly twenty-eight lbs., and the Shepherd sold it for a guinea to a Gentleman at Cambridge.

Pheasants

were brought into Europe by the Argonauts 1250 years before the Christian æra, and are at present found in a state of nature in nearly the whole of the Old Continent. It may surprise the Sportsman to read, that this bird, which he finds wild in forests which can scarcely be said to have an owner, was brought from the banks of the Phasis, a river of Colchis in Asia Minor, and artificially propagated with us, and amongst other parts of the Globe. The price they bore, according to Echard's History of England, Anno Dom. 1299, (being the 27th of EDWARD the First,) was fourpence; (at the same period, the value of a Mallard was three halfpence, a Plover one penny, a couple of Woodcocks three halfpence: Wheat was sold for twenty, and at some places for sixteen, pence per quarter, or four shillings of our money. A fat Lamb,