34 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



one large case, a magnificent male, two females, a young 

 bird in nestling plumage, and two eggs, and in a separate 

 case a third female and two more eggs.^ All the birds in 

 the large group, as I have recently ascertained, were 

 procured and preserved by the Eev. R. Hamond, in the 

 year 1820 ;t and the particulars of their capture, so far as 

 they can now be ascertained, J appear to be as follows : — 

 One female was shot by a man at Westacre, who sold it 

 to Mr. Hamond ; the other was picked up dead, by him- 

 self, shortly afterwards in a turnip field near S waff ham, 

 his dog having pointed it when ranging for other game, 

 and the nestling was hatched out under a Turkey from 

 one of two eggs, taken about the same time, on either 

 Westacre or Massingham-field. The history of the male 

 bird is somewhat more confused, owing, I believe, to 

 two if not thi'ee having been killed about the same 

 time, which would account for certain discrepancies 

 between Mr. Moor's account in the "Zoologist'* and 

 notes supplied to me by Mr. R. Elwes, Mr. Scales (who 

 frequently assisted Mr. Hamond in preserving his birds), 

 and a former gamekeeper of Mr. Hamond's, named 

 Cater, now in his seventy-ninth year. There is no 

 doubt, however, that this noble bird was shot at or 

 near Westacre by Mr. Hamond himself, and, as proved 

 by his own memorandum on the lithograph, in the year 

 1820. It is said to have weighed twenty-eight pounds. 



* The late Mr. Selby came to Norfolk expressly to see and draw 

 these birds, and the result will be found in his " Illustrations of 

 British Ornithology," published in 1825 (vol. i., plates 64 and 64*). 



t I am indebted to Mr. Alwin S. Bell, of Weymouth, for the 

 Bight of a lithograph, representing this group of bustards (see 

 " Zoologist," s. s., p. 2103), which was presented by the Eev. E. 

 Hamond in 1831 to Mr. M. Martin, of Eye, Sussex, and on the back 

 of which, in Mr. Hamond's own writing, is an inscription stating 

 that they were all shot and preserved in the year 1820. 



J See Mr. B. J. Moor's account of these birds in the "Zoologist," 

 s. s. (p. 2024.) 



