INTRODUCTION. 11 



open country witli plantations. The Stock-Dove was, 

 probably, the only species of its order met with. But 

 the ornitholo^cal glory of the district was the Bustard 

 (Otis tarda) . Its history will be found so fully detailed 

 in tbe body of this work that it is needless now to enter 

 into particulars. It will suffice to say that the bird 

 became extinct about the year 1838, when the two last 

 examples were known to have been killed in the county. 

 It is the prevalent belief that the latest survivors of this 

 noble species were unmercifully destroyed to satisfy the 

 desires of sportsmen, collectors, or epicures. There is 

 no reason for such a belief. Its extirpation was 

 doubtless caused by man, but indirectly, and not, as the 

 extirpation of Eagles is still being compassed in Scot- 

 land, directly. Its chief destroyer was most assuredly 

 the agriculturist. He found his crops wanted shelter, 

 and planted long belts of trees to keep the wind from 

 carrying his soil to the next parish, and removing his 

 own or his neighbour's landmark.^ This intersecting of 

 the open country was intolerable to the Bustard, which 

 could not bear to be within reach of anything that 

 might conceal an enemy. Its favourite haunts were, 

 therefore, year by year restricted. But more than this, 

 the substitution of wheat for rye, as the system of tillage 

 improved, aimed a still more fatal blow at its existence. 

 The hen Bustard almost always laid her eggs in the 

 winter-corn. When this came to be wheat, it was still 

 more an object to save as much seed as possible, so the 

 drill was invented. It was also worth while to keep the 

 land well clear of weeds, and the horse-hoe, therefore. 



* The effect of higli winds, after dry weatlier in this district, is 

 not easily described. The whole air is filled with sand, till it 

 resembles a London fog. Nearly every particle of fertilizing 

 matter is blown away from the land, as is shown for years after- 

 wards by its barrenness. 



