68 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



in Britain is found in a work entitled A History 

 of Scotland, written by Hector Boethius, and 

 published in 1526. Since 1684 there appears to 

 be no evidence that the Great Bustard dwelt in 

 this area. Coming southwards, we find that the 

 last Bustards disappeared from the Yorkshire wolds 

 about 1826. Its final disappearance from Lincoln- 

 shire is not recorded, but Professor Newton states 

 that it probably occurred about the same time. In 

 Norfolk, where the bird appears to have lingered 

 longest, the last two examples were killed in 1838. 

 In Suffolk the Bustard ceased to exist in 1832 ; 

 whilst the first ten years of the present century 

 saw its extermination from Salisbury Plain in 

 Wilts : similar remarks apply to Dorset. From its 

 other English haunts it appears to have passed 

 away without any record whatever, although we 

 may mention that there is no evidence of indigen- 

 ous birds occurring within the present century at 

 all. It is somewhat difficult to account for the 

 extermination of the Great Bustard in Britain by 

 those causes which have been so disastrous in the 

 case of other species. The planting of trees and 

 the enclosure of land may have had some share in 

 the extinction of the Bustard, but we are inclined 

 more to attribute its disappearance to direct persecu- 



