THE BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
OTIS TARDA, Linneus. 
GREAT BUSTARD. 
Wir almost kindred feelings to those with which one 
contemplates, in the human race, the extinction of 
some great historic name, the naturalist, at least, regards 
the extermination amongst us of this noble indi- 
e@enous species; and in either case we mark the same 
final cause—the failure of “heirs male.” It is singular, 
however, considering the interest that appears to have 
attached, at all times, to so fine a bird, that our printed 
records of its ways and means should be, for the most 
part, so brief and unsatisfactory, and that the biography 
of the Great Bustard, like that of many other celebrities, 
should have remained to be written after it had ceased 
to exist, as a resident, on British soil. Of its general 
history pretty full particulars may be gleaned from the 
well-known works of Selby, Yarrell, Gould, and others; 
and to this, therefore, I need not refer; but I shall 
endeavour to give as complete an account as possible of 
the Bustard in its special character of a Norfolk bird, 
and I have it fortunately in my power to make public 
a considerable amount of information hitherto unavail- 
able. In particular I must mention that Mr. Alfred 
Newton (Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 
in the University of Cambridge), who has long been 
collecting materials for a complete monograph of this 
B 
