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.” 
From 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 pieked 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 
Ws Ph li ea maien to be the head-quarters of the cent Poster in the counties 
Gilbert White of Selborne, in his Diary, mentions, under the date of 17th November, 
iig ** That being at a lone farmhouse on the downs between Whorwell and Winchester, 
M: is PIRA ce twelve years before he had seen a flock of eighteen Bustards 
Since the publication of the second edition of the * History of British Birds,’ I have only 
noticed three instances of the occurrence of this speci : We 
female, was seen on Salish pecies. One, believed by its size to be a 
ury Plain by Mr. G. R. Waterhouse of the British Museum, in 
Re ts Beau 1849, when returning to Salisbury with a party of friends from a 
ein sis u Mr. Waterhouse is well known as an excellent naturalist, and the 
a opi emn on the wing by the party during an interval of eight or ten 
Whe kaa 2 | 1s recorded in the volume of the * Zoologist’ for 1849, at page 2590. 
» also a female, was shot in January 1850, at Lydd, in Romney Marsh. 
