Gould stated that the bustard was once seen on the open plains and heaths of East Anglia and Wiltshire, the downs of Berkshire, Hampshire and Sussex and the Yorkshire wolds. During the mid-nineteenth century its numbers gradually decreased, for it was easily shot by landowners, farmers and poachers. He hoped that with protection and care the bustards would be preserved, but they last bred in 1832, and since then only occasional vagrants were reported.

In the background Wolf depicted the males in a 'state of excitement' during the breeding-season, then their necks were enormously inflated, and their white undertail coverts were spread out like a fan. The female nested in open country in a depression of the ground and she is shown with two young in the foreground.

DISTRIBUTION: Breeds Iberia, Germany, Austria, Poland, and southeast Europe discontinuously eastwards through Asia. Eastern populations may move south in winter. Bred in Britain up to the first half of nineteenth century; now recorded only as rare vagrant