Z BIRDS OF NOEFOLK. 



bird — a design he is still prosecuting — lias, in tlie most 

 friendly and liberal spirit, assisted me in many of the 

 most important details, as will be evident to all who 

 may peruse the present narrative. Mr. John Scales, 

 formerly of Beachamwell, and Mr. Thomas Southwell, 

 of Lynn, have also obligingly contributed much informa- 

 tion relative to the bustard in the neighbourhood of 

 S waff ham. 



Besides the barren "brecks" of Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 the great bustard, on good authority, appears in former 

 times to have been extremely common on all the open 

 parts of this island, which were suited to its habits — 

 the elevated moors of Haddingtonshire and Berwickshire, 

 the desolate wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, 

 Newmarket and Royston heaths on the borders of 

 Cambridgeshire, together with the downs of Berkshire, 

 Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Southampton, and Sussex, being 

 all more or less frequented by it ; but in every one of 

 these localities it had ceased to exist before the last of 

 the race of British bustards fell victims to the advance- 

 ment of agricultural enterprise, in this and the adjoining 

 county. 



Of our local records the earliest in point of date'^ are 

 contained in the published extracts from the Household 

 Books of the L'Estrange's, of Hunstanton, where, in the 

 '^ Privy Purse Accounts," for the year 1527, we find the 

 following entry : — 



The xljst weke, 



Wedynsday. Itm viij malards, a bustard, and j hei'nsewe 

 kylled wt ye crosbowe. 



* There is apparently but one earlier notice of the great bustard 

 in Britain, viz., in the works of the celebrated Scotch historian. 

 Hector Boethius, published in the year 1526, whose remarks on 

 this species are referred to by Willoughby. The entries in the 

 Northumberland Household Book, which commenced in 1512, 

 and in which bustards are mentioned, are also nearly contemporary 

 with the Hunstanton records. 



