[appendix b.] birds of noefolk:. 399 



day, & generally on the same spot ; & I have found 

 from observations that a female will frequent a certain 

 field, undisturbed, for near a month before she deposits 

 her eggs, which is generally about the 12th of May. 

 There was a nest destroyed by the weeders last year 

 near the spot I can generally see the one in question. 

 I wish you would pay me a visit, & I think I could show 

 you some. I am certain in winter, if not in summer ; 

 & I am now confident in asserting that the males come 

 & visit the females, as they are never seen together at 

 this season of the year." {" Trans. Norf. and Norw. 

 Nat. Soc," ii., pp. 400, 401.) 



Nine years later (1833) Mr. Lubbock has a note : — 

 ^' At present four bustards known about Congham and 

 Westacre, supposed all females; no increase among 

 them." 



I find the following note, dated November 30, 1870, 

 in Mr. Stevenson's handwriting : — 



" Mr. Drake, late of Billingford, told me to-day he had 

 recently seen Tom Saul (late coachman to Cromer in 

 Windham's time), and talking of bustards, he said some- 

 where about 1830 he remembered riding with the late A. 

 Hamond and Mr. Fountaine of Narford, near Walton 

 Bottom, below Westacre Field, where they saw some- 

 thing at a distance he could not make out, but took for 

 sheep troughs." Mr. Hamond offered to make a bet 

 that the objects were bustards. " Saul rode on, the 

 birds rose and fled, and Mr. Hamond remarked, ^did 

 you ever see sheep troughs take wing before.' Saul was 

 of age in 1831, and this was about that time. . . . 

 Mr. Drake says he has somewhere a bustard's egg given 

 to his father by the late Mr. Downes, of Gunton, and his 

 father always understood it was found on Beechamwell 

 Common." 



To Colonel Feilden I am indebted for the following 

 extracts, copied by him from the Holkham game book, 

 and given to me with the Earl of Leicester's approval : — 



"1814. Oct. 7. Mr. Butcher killed a bustard on 

 his farm and sent it here. 



"1816. Nov. 11. [after a list of the birds killed by 

 the different guns]. Wild day. Lord Spencer saw 

 three bustards, 



