2 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
bird—a design he is still prosecuting—has, in the 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 
Swaffham. 
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 hernsewe 
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. 
