28 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
“When a boy I remember two or three individuals in 
a domesticated state. I recollect one of these birds 
swallowing, in an instant, a thin leather glove which 
I dropped.” 
The local distribution of the bustard when an inhab- 
itant of Norfolk, was, as may be gathered from the 
foregoing paragraphs, comprised within the boundaries 
of the “Breck” district ;* indeed, scarcely any other 
part of the county was suited to their habits, and whilst 
their head-quarters were situated around Westacre and 
Thetford, the latter haunt, on the extreme southern limit 
of the county, immediately adjoined their chief stronghold 
in Suffolk, at Icklingham and Elveden. From the two 
centres as it were, already described, we trace them by 
the records of birds seen or killed, or of localities in 
which nests were occasionally discovered, diverging in 
all directions, yet rarely overstepping their prescribed 
bounds even when wandering in search of food during 
hard winters. The wide sandy “Denes,” on the 
borders of the Wash, backed by rough marshes and 
running streams, were, no doubt, at all times, a 
favourite resort for their roving flocks at the close of 
the breeding season. Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear 
speak of having twice seen a male bustard in the neigh- 
bourhood of Burnham; and a male bird still preserved 
at Hillington Hall, near Lynn, was trapped at Docking, 
as ascertained by Mr. G. B. Ffolkes, more than fifty 
years ago. As I learn, also, from a communication 
received through my friend Mr. G. G. Fowler, the late Mr. 
William Ffolkes remembered, when a boy, having seen 
seven bustards, on several occasions, in the parish of 
Hillington ; but these, from the desire of people at that 
time to procure specimens, were soon reduced to three 
hens, of which the last was the Dersingham bird, pur- 
* See the “Introduction” to vol. i., p. xviii. 
