6 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
Spain,* where they still abound, the cock birds in 
Andalucia are known to part company from the hens 
in the month of May, and, leaving the latter on the 
uplands, betake themselves to the marshes. Still, 
however, to quote once more from Mr. Newton’s notes, 
a small flock of hen bustards, including the parents of 
the eges mentioned, continued to occupy the country 
around Swaffham for some years longer, but there is no 
record of any cock bird having been observed—it is, there- 
fore, a sad reflection when we think that had a male bird 
been procured from the continent, and liberated in that 
district, the great bustard might still have been an 
indigenous bird in this country. Be this as it may—the 
hen birds are asserted to have dropped eggs at random, 
continually, as the season came round, without taking 
the trouble to form their usual sight nests—and this 
continued until the year 1838. In the month of 
February of that year, a female bustard was brought 
to the Cambridge market, where it was bought by Mr. 
Smith, the butler of Pembroke Hall, for Mr. William 
Borrer, of Cowfold, in Sussex, then an undergraduate 
of Peterhouse, in whose possession it still remains ; 
* Lord Lilford, who has had recent opportunities of observing 
these birds in Spain and has very kindly favoured me with 
several notes respecting them, states that ‘“‘They are extremely 
common in all the central and southern parts of that country suited 
to their habits, particularly in the immense plains of Estremadura, 
the valley of the Guadalquivir, about Seville, the arid, treeless, 
plains of La Mancha and old Castile. The main body arrive in 
the country early in March, and about the middle of April pair. 
My own impression is they are not strictly polygamous, though 
instances thereof often happen. The greater number leave Spain 
about October, though a good many always remain in Andalucia 
during the winter. Ihave seen upwards of a hundred together 
near Seville, in April; and I believe in the autumn, after harvest, 
they collect in immense numbers in the grass marshes below that 
town.” 
