in ornithology, a genus of birds belonging to the order of grallae. There are four species, principally distinguished by their colour. One of the species, the tarda, or bullard, is the largest of the British land-fowl; the male at a medium weighing 25 pounds; there are instances of some very old ones weighing 27: the breadth nine feet; the length near four. Besides the size and difference of colour, the male is distinguished from the female by a tuft of feathers about five inches long on each side of the lower mandible. Its head and neck are ash-coloured; the back is barred transversely with black and bright rufous colour: the greater quill-feathers are black: the belly white: the tail is marked with broad red and black bars, and consists of twenty feathers: the legs dusky.

The female is about half the size of the male: the crown of the head is of a deep orange, traversed with black lines; the rest of the head is brown. The lower part of the fore-side of the neck is ash-coloured; in other respects it resembles the male, only the colours of the back and wings are far more dull.

These birds inhabit most of the open countries of the south and east parts of this island, from Dorsetshire, as far as the Wolds in Yorkshire. They are exceeding shy, and difficult to be shot; run very fast, and when on the wing can fly, though slowly, many miles without resting. It is said that they take flight with difficulty, and are sometimes run down with greyhounds. They keep near their old haunts, seldom wandering above 20 or 30 miles. Their food is corn and other vegetables, and those large earth-worms that appear in great quantities on the downs before sunrise in the summer. These are replete with moisture, answer the purpose of liquids, and enable them to live long without drinking on those extensive and dry tracts. Besides this, nature hath given the males an admirable magazine for their security against drought, being a pouch, whose entrance lies immediately under the tongue, and which is capable of holding near seven quarts; and this they probably fill with water, to supply the hen when sitting, or the young before they can fly. Bustards lay only two eggs, of the size of those of a goose, of a pale olive-brown, marked with spots of a dark colour; they make no nests, only scrape a hole in the ground. In autumn they are (in Wiltshire) generally found in large turnip-fields near the Downs, and in flocks of 50 or more.