398 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. [APPENDIX B.] 



particularly glad to see the monster. It will be a 

 handsome present to them. So let the bustard come, 

 as the Lord Mayor of London said of the hare, when he 

 was hunting — let her come, a' God's name ; I am not 

 afraid of her."* 



The "Sporting Magazine" for May, 1794, has a 

 note to the effect that " a man, in company with the 

 Rev. Mr. Graves, of Lackford, being in pursuit of some 

 bustards, near Thetford," was so much injured by the 

 bursting of his gun that he died in the workhouse there 

 a few days after. 



The sale " Catalogue of the Leverian Museum " 

 shews (p. 63) that lot 1520, sold on the 19th May, 1806, 

 was " a noble specimen of the male bustard, otis tarda, 

 shot in Norfolk, its weight was 29 lbs. ; " and, according 

 to the annotated copy in possession of Professor Newton, 

 it was bought by " Donovan ^ Latham " at the price 

 of four guineas. 



Graves, in his " British Ornithology " (vol. iii.) pub- 

 lished in 1821, states of this species — "In the spring 

 of 1814 we saw five birds on the extensive plains 

 between Thetford and Brandon, in Norfolk ; from which 

 neighbourhood, in 1819, we received a single egg, 

 which had been found in [on ?] an extensive warren." 



Mr. Whitear in his diary, under date of June 17th, 

 1816, wrote, ^'I saw a fine male bustard in the open 

 fields, between Burnham and Choseley ; he suffered me 

 to approach him to the distance of about a hundred 

 yards ; he then walked a few paces and took wing. He 

 moved his wings like a heron. "f 



The dwindling of the Swaffham drove of bustards 

 already mentioned by Mr. Stevenson (vol. ii., p. 7) 

 receives further illustration from a letter dated 28th 

 April, 1824, written by Robert Hamond to Selby, who 

 had apparently asked him for a specimen : — 



" I am sorry I cannot let a bustard accompany the 

 stone curlew, but they are becoming exceeding scarce. 

 I saw three about a month ago, & one female yester- 



*" Private Correspondence of William Cowper," &c., ed. 2, 

 London : 1824, vol ii., pp. 319, 320. 



f " Trans. Norf. and Norw. Nat. See," iii., p. 242. 



