Bustard
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Bustard. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
busterd, a family of game birds, somewhat resembling the turkey in appearance, but classified between the plover and the crane. There are several species, found throughout Africa, about the Mediterranean, and eastward in southern Asia, as far as Japan. The common bustard ranges along the northern shore of the Mediterranean and as far east as the open steppes of Tartary. It haunts inland plains and desert regions. It has strong, naked legs and feet and is a good flyer. It is a handsome bird with ornamental chestnut plumage, varied with black and white, and is not unlike a grouse in habits. The great bustard attains a weight of thirty pounds. An allied species is the so-called wild turkey of New South Wales . Bustards were at one time numerous in Yorkshire and on Salisbury Plain, but the last English birds were seen about 1838.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of a genus of European birds, the otis, which is the typical one of the family otitidæ. The great bustard (O. tarda), the little bustard (O. tetrix), and Macqueen's bustard (O. macqueeni) are the best known species. The great bustard was formerly_common in Wiltshire and in Norfolk, England. It has the plumage on the back of a bright yellow traversed by a number of black bars, the rest of the LITTLE BUSTARD plumage being grayish. It runs and flies well. It is still common in parts of the European Continent. The little bustard (O. tetrix) is a Mediterranean bird. It is brown dotted with black above, and beneath is whitish. The male has a black neck with two white collars.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 note that "the last English birds were seen about 1838" held true for nearly two centuries — the accepted date is now 1832 — but it no longer does: from 2004 the Great Bustard Group released chicks from Russia and later Spain on Salisbury Plain, and a small population has bred in the wild there since 2009. Collier's 1921 confidence that the great bustard "is still common in parts of the European Continent" has worn thin; steppe ploughing and hunting have pushed it onto the IUCN Vulnerable list, and the little bustard, once unremarkable, is now Near Threatened after steep declines in France and Iberia. The classification has also been rebuilt: the single genus Otis has been split (the little bustard is Tetrax tetrax, Macqueen's bustard Chlamydotis macqueenii), and DNA work has moved bustards out of the crane-and-plover neighbourhood into an order of their own, Otidiformes, whose nearest relatives appear to be turacos and cuckoos. Aiton's "thirty pounds" was modest — males of over forty pounds are recorded, making it the heaviest living bird able to fly.
Written for this edition, 2026.