PREFACE. 
—»—. 
In completing a second though not final volume of the 
“Birds of Norfolk,” I feel that some explanation is 
due not only as to the unavoidable delay in its publica- 
tion but as to the motives which have induced me to 
extend the former plan of the work. I should state, then, 
that in the endeavour to render my account of the Great 
Bustard as complete as possible, with reference alike 
to its habits and habitat, when an indigenous species in 
Norfolk, and to the history of such specimens of either 
birds or eggs as are still preserved in public and private 
collections, I was led into so considerable an amount of 
correspondence that this paper had been but recently 
completed, when read, in a condensed form, before 
Section D, of the British Association, at their meeting 
in Norwich, in 1868. This species, therefore, which, 
according to the classification I have adopted, properly 
commenced the present volume, may be said to have 
stopped the way for a considerable period, and has 
thus been the chief cause of a delay which I certainly 
have less reason to regret, since it has enabled me to 
put on record facts, retained only in the memory of our 
oldest inhabitants, and which a very few years hence 
would have been procurable only in a traditionary, and, 
therefore, far less reliable form. 
There are but few individuals now living who re- 
member the Great Bustard in Norfolk and Suffolk even 
in its latter days, and fewer still are the octogenarians 
who can recall the appearance of this noble species 
when still existing in “droves” in the Thetford or 
