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(Otis Tetrax, Linn.—La petite Outarde, Buff.)
LENGTH seventeen inches. The bill is pale brown; irides red; the top of the head black, spotted with pale rusty: the sides of the head, the chin, and throat, red-dish white, marked with a few dark spots; the whole neck in the male is black, encircled with an irregular band of white near the top and bottom; the back and wings rufous, mottled with brown, and crossed with fine irregular black lines; the under parts of the body, and outer edges of the wings, are white: the tail consists of eighteen feathers; the middle ones tawny, barred with black, the others white, marked with a few irregular bands of black: legs grey. The female (from which our figure was taken) differs from this description, is smaller, and has not the black collar; in other respects she nearly resembles the male.This bird is very uncommon in this country; and we have seen only two, both of them females. The figure was drawn from one sent by W. Trevelyan, Esq. which was taken on the edge of Newmarket Heath, and kept alive about three weeks in a kitchen, where it was fed with bread and other things, such as poultry eat. It is common in France, where it is taken in nets like the Partridge. It is a very shy and cunning bird; if disturbed, it flies two or three hundred paces, not far from the ground, and then runs away much faster than any one can follow on foot. The female lays in June, to the number of three or four eggs, of a glossy green: as soon as the young are hatched, she leads them about as the Hen does her chickens: they begin to fly about the middle of August.
Both this and the Great Bustard are excellent eating, and would well repay the trouble of domestication; indeed it seems surprizing that we should suffer these fine birds to be in danger of total extinction, although, if properly cultivated, they might afford as excellent a repast as our own domestic poultry, or even as the Turkey, for which we are indebted to distant countries.
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