402 BIRDS OF NOEFOLK. [APPENDIX B.] 



In 1888 Colonel Feilden was so fortunate as to 

 obtain a specimen of a female bustard which there is 

 good reason to believe was of the original Norfolk 

 race. From the account which he published ("Trans. 

 Norf. and Nor. Nat. Soc," iv., p. 519) it had been 

 given more than twenty years before as a plaything to 

 the children of a labouring man living at Holkham, by 

 the wife of a neighbour whose relations were inhabitants 

 of Sedgeford, near Heacham. How it came into her 

 possession cannot be ascertained ; but the late Mr. 

 Samuel Bone, deer-keeper at Holkham, himself brought 

 up at Westacre,* recognized its value, and, protesting 

 against the use to which it was being put, prevailed 

 on the father of the children to have it put in a case. 

 Here Colonel Feilden discovered it, and after having it 

 re-mounted by Mr. Roberts, of Norwich, who found the 

 body to be made of layers of cork, presented it to Lord 

 Leicester, in whose collection at Holkham it now is. 



Mr. Lubbock's papers also supply a contemporary, 

 and therefore important, record of the supposed bustard 

 seen near Harling (vol. ii., p. 8), and mentioned in his 

 " Fauna of Norfolk " (ed. 2, p. 65), about which much 

 doubt has been expressed : — 



" About Christmas, 1840, Mr. G. Montgomerie, 

 walking over Eoudham Heath, came within fourteen 

 or fifteen yards of a bustard — his dog stood at it in 

 astonishment, and he did not know in the least what it 

 was. On its taking wing, which it did slowly, he struck 

 it with both barrels, but did not bring it down. The 

 bustard in question took a long flight to the other side 

 of the parish, where Mr. T. Montgomerie [owner of 

 Garboldisham Hall] happened to be shooting, who 



House, St. Agnes Gate, Ripon, who stated that he had a pair in 

 his possession which he believed had been obtained at least thirty- 

 five years before, but being then eighty-four years of age, he was 

 unable to give any particulars of them. Mr. Stevenson could not 

 have attached much importance to this statement, as, although 

 he must have been aware of it when he wrote his article, he does 

 not refer to it therein. 



* Bone, in 1880, being then sixty-nine years old, told Colonel 

 Feilden of his having in his youth found a bustard's nest with 

 two eggs in it at Westacre. 



