" GREAT BUSTARD. 555 



I confess I was not, nor am I now, satisfied with it, though 

 I am unable to suggest any explanation of the difficulty — 

 for, even if he had been a year or two older than he said 

 (and he could not have been more) it would still remain." 

 Thomas Allis, in his oft-quoted Report, in 1844, wrote : — 



Otis tarda. — The Great Bustard — F. O. Morris and Hugh Reid 

 refer to a specimen killed at North Dalton, and now in the possession 

 of James Hall, Esq., of Scorborough, near Beverley. See also Yarrell's 

 " British Birds," where several instances are mentioned, but it is now 

 nearly if not quite extinct. Arthur Strickland says : " This splendid 

 bird used to be a constant resident on the extensive Wolds in this 

 Riding, but the extension of tillage and the numerous enclosures 

 which have taken place within this half century, and the introduction 

 of artificial crops, particularly saintfoin and clover, which from being 

 early cut often led to their destruction, they rapidly decreased, and 

 have for some years been quite extinct. About thirty years ago [i.e., 

 1 8 14] when I first knew this country, the flock frequenting this part 

 of the Wolds was reduced to five or six, and appeared to remain at 

 that standing for some time, and I not infrequently met with it when 

 riding about ; it however soon became reduced, and it is about fifteen 

 years since [i.e., 1829J the last was killed at Reighton, since which 

 [time] none have been seen in this neighbourhood. I believe those 

 frequenting the Wolds south of Driffield remained in existence some 

 years longer, but are now totally exterminated." 



In this last and somewhat offhand statement I am of opinion 

 that Strickland was mistaken, for, judging from the evidence 

 which I am able to quote, the birds on the north Wolds certainly 

 existed a few years later than those in the south. 



The last Bustards which frequented the southern portion 

 of the Wolds were in the vicinity of North and South Dalton. 

 There is an egg — the only Yorkshire one known to exist — 

 in the Scarborough Museum, the note attached to which states 

 it was found by James Dowker of North Dalton, in the 

 East Riding, in 1810. This was presented to the Museum in 

 March 1840, by Dr. John Bury (H. W. Fielden, Zool. 1870, 

 p. 2063). John Wolley, the eminent oologist, who saw the 

 egg in 1843 and in 1850, noted in his egg book that it had 

 been boiled with the notion of preserving it, and was of 

 bad colour {torn. cit. p. 2102). H. Woodall informed F. O. 

 Morris that in 1816 or 1817 James Dowker killed two Bustards 



