LITTLE BUSTARD. 217 



some of them males, have occurretl iu the winter half- year, 

 — that is, from the middle of autumn to the middle of 

 spring : both sexes, during that period, wearing the same 

 livery. 



Bewick mentions two British-killed female specimens : 

 one of them from the vicinity of Newmarket ; and Latham 

 cites another, also a female, killed near Eomsey, in January, 

 1809. Pennant records the occurrence of one in Cornwall 

 so long ago as 1751, and since that date about a dozen have 

 been killed in that county.* Six or seven instances might 

 be enumerated of its visits to Devonshire : two of them so 

 recently as December, 1881 ; and it has occurred with more 

 or less frequency in Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Essex, 

 Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk. As regards 

 Norfolk, owing to the careful manner in which the orni- 

 thology of that county has been worked out by Mr. H. 

 Stevenson and others, about a dozen examples are on 

 record : all in winter plumage. There is, however, an example 

 now in the collection of the British Museum to which espe- 

 cial interest attaches owing to its being a male in breeding 

 plumage, and, consequently, an exception to the statement 

 made above ; but Mr. Stevenson's investigations shew that 

 there is no evidence to prove that it was killed in Norfolk, 

 or even in Britain (Birds of Norfolk, ii. p. 43). Proceeding 

 northwards, two Little Bustards are found to have visited 

 Lincolnshire ; about a dozen have occurred in various parts 

 of Yorkshire ; a few in Nottingham and other Midland 

 counties f ; three in Northumberland ; and, probably, a 

 good many others in counties not specially enumerated 

 here. An unusual number were obtained in the winter of 

 1874-75. In Scotland four examples have occurred: all 



* In Fox's ' Synopsis ' (p. 254), H. Mewburn writes from St. German's, under 

 date of 7th March, 1826, that in July, 1816, he obtained a male, which he sent 

 to Bewick ; but nothing is said of its plumage. 



t A male and a female, the former in breeding plumage, purchased at the 

 sale of the late Mr. Footit, arc now in the collection of Mr. J. Whitaker, of 

 Rainworth Lodge, near Mansfield. It might be assumed that these are the two 

 examples which were sliot near Newark-on-Trent ; but Mr. Footit left no evi- 

 dence on the point. 



VOL. III. V F 



