158 MR. YARRELL ON THE HABITS AND 



It contained two eggs ; they sometimes lay three, though very seldom ; they are about 

 the size of those of a goose, of a pale olive-brown, with small spots of a darker hue. 

 The nest was made upon the ground, by scratching a hole in the earth, and lined with 

 a little grass. The eggs were rotten, and had probably undergone a period of incu- 

 bation. 



" An instance of a Bustard attacking a human being, or even a brute animal, of any 

 considerable size, was, I believe, never before heard of; and that two instances of this kind 

 should occur so nearly together may be considered very remarkable. About a fortnight 

 subsequent to the taking of this bird, Mr. Grant, a respectable farmer of Tilshead, was 

 returning from Warminster Market, and near Tilshead Lodge, which is something more 

 than half a mile from the village, was attacked in a similar manner, by, as it is thought, 

 the mate of the same bird. Mr. Grant's horse being rather high-mettled, took fright, 

 became unmanageable and ran off, and consequently Mr. Grant was compelled to abandon 

 his design of endeavouring to capture the bird." 



Prom J. H. Gurney, Esq., of Norwich, I received a communication to the following 

 effect : — 



" As far as I can learn, the last Bustard killed in Norfolk was a female, which 

 was shot at Lexham near Swaffham, towards the end of the year 1838. The small flock, 

 of which this bird was one, had for some years previously consisted of females only, the 

 eggs of which were frequently picked up, having been dropped about at random in con- 

 sequence of the absence of male birds, the latter having become extinct at an earlier date. 



" Before horse-hoeing was practised, the large wheat-fields of West Norfolk were often 

 left unhoed, and the Bustards were able to nest in them undisturbed ; but horse-hoeing 

 rapidly improved the farming and destroyed the nesting of the Bustard." 



My worthy friend Frederick J. Nash, Esq., of Bishops-Stortford, has several times told 

 me, that when he was a young man, and then taking the field as a sportsman, he once 

 saw nine flights of Bustards in one day, not far from Thetford in Norfolk. Some of these 

 birds were probably seen more than once, but at that time, about the beginning of the 

 present century, the country between Thetford and Brandon, and from thence southward 

 to Mildenhall, was considered to be the head-quarters of the Great Bustard in the counties 

 of Norfolk and Suffolk. 



Gilbert White of Selborne, in his Diary, mentions, under the date of 17th November, 

 1782, " That being at a lone farmhouse on the downs between Whorwell and Winchester, 

 the carter told him that about twelve years before he had seen a flock of eighteen Bustards 

 at one time on that farm." 



Since the publication of the second edition of the • History of British Birds,' I have only 

 noticed three instances of the occurrence of this species. One, believed by its size to be a 

 female, was seen on Salisbury Plain by Mr. G. R. Waterhouse of the British Museum, in 

 the month of August 1849, when returning to Salisbury with a party of friends from a 

 visit to Stonehenge. Mr. Waterhouse is well known as an excellent naturalist, and the 

 bird was seen several times on the wing by the party during an interval of eight or ten 

 minutes. The subject is recorded in the volume of the • Zoologist ' for 1849, at page 2590. 



The second bird, also a female, was shot in January 1850, at Lydd, in Romney Marsh. 



