ABSTRACT

The fifth order, Gallinæ, includes all those birds which are assembled in our farm or poultry yards, and are collected from different parts of the would, to contribute, under the name of domestic fowl, to our support; as well as all those that are usually called game, which, whether indigenous or naturalized from other countries, are preserved by laws for the amusement of the rich. It also includes some of the largest natives of Africa and America. The first of these, which is a native of England, is the Bustard, Otis, formerly more frequent than at present on downs and open countries. The Bustard is bigger than the largest turkey, and runs with such swiftness, that only greyhounds have any chance of overtaking it. Under it’s tongue is an orifice, opening into a sack, in which it can carry seven pints of water; a wise contrivance of nature, to prevent the inconvenience the bird would otherwise encounter from the want of water, on those dry and stony tracts where it is destined to live. There were, a few years ago, Bustards on Salisbury Plain; but I have heard that even there they are now very rarely met with, and would probably have been entirely extirpated, as the young ones are excellent food, but that their sight and hearing is so quick, as enables them to escape from their pursuers. Always on the alert, they fly from the most distant appearance of danger; and I think I recollect being told, that the only way in which they can be approached within gun shot is by the following stratagem: They are accustomed to see a great number of tilted waggons passing over the plain in different directions, and from such appearances they do not fly with their usual velocity. The sportsman, therefore, concealing himself in one of these waggons, sees the Bustards fearlessly feeding on the grass and worms within a convenient distance, and fires at them with swan shot. Their nests are made on the bare earth, on the edges of cultivated grounds, near the plains where they live. They lay only two eggs. As the close of the season for shooting Bustards is marked in the Almanack on the 28th of February, I suppose they are still an object to sportsmen.