14 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



seem also, but this is not so certain, in East AngKa to 

 have absented themselves from the time when the 

 harvest was gathered in till the beginning of the new 

 year. Indeed, the existing evidence of the appearance 

 of bustards from the middle of September to Christmas 

 is very scanty, and this is the more remarkable because 

 this period of the year, forming a great" part of the 

 shooting season, is just when one would have expected 

 more to have been observed than perhaps at any other 

 time.* Early in January these birds showed themselves, 

 and rem.ained in droves, generally frequenting the turnip- 

 fields, where they fed largely on turnip-tops, and till the 

 winter-corn was sufficiently grown to afford them shelter, 

 they were seen commonly enough. When the com, the 

 rye especially, was coming into ear, the hen birds retired 

 into it to form their nests — shallow holes scraped in the 

 ground with a slight bedding of dry grass. Here they laid 

 their two eggs — perhaps, indeed, three occasionally, but 

 testimony as to the third is not altogether conclusive — 

 and endeavoured for some months to avoid observation. 

 When the com was cut, they gathered again into droves 

 for about a month or six weeks, after which time they 



* The late Mr. [Henry] Elwes, as recorded, by Yarrell, " shot 

 a hen bustard to a pointer in a turnip-field, at Congham, in the 

 autumn of 1831." There is also a story of Colonel Wildman, of 

 Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, having killed a bustard in 

 Norfolk during the shooting season, but date and other particulars 

 are wanting. At Elveden, between the 4th and 18th of Sept., 1813, 

 the late Sir Alexander Grant shot at a young bustard, which was 

 caught in a rabbit-trap a few days after (the 27th.) The bird shot by 

 Mr. Wood, as previously mentioned, was killed in autumn. The 

 L'Estrange Household Book, already quoted, mentions one brought 

 to Hunstanton in the forty-first week, which, counting (after the old 

 style) from 1st of March, would be that beginning December 6th. 

 These are all the occurrences bearing upon this point, and thus 

 there is positively no precise information respecting the appearance 

 of a bustard during the months of October and November. 



