GREAT BUSTARD. 197 



ponds, dove coate, and all sorts of offices without door, woods 

 of large timber, and where is all game in great plenty, even 

 to the Bustard and Pheasant, is to be let, furnished or 

 unfurnished, for 10 years. Enquire at Mr. Chus, in Bartly 

 Street, Piccadily, or at Mr. Cooper's, at the Blue Boar, in 

 Holborn." To this the Author may add, that in Melbourne, 

 the parish next below Royston, there is a piece of land which 

 is still known by the name of Bustard-Leys ; and Dr. George 

 Thackeray, the Provost of King's College, Cambridge, sent 

 him word that Mr. Townley, the father of Mr. Greaves 

 Townley, of Fulbourne, told him that for some years after he 

 first went to live there, Bustards regularly bred on his estate. 

 In Morton's ' Natural History of Northampton,' p. 425 

 (1712), occurs the following :—" The Bustard, Otis, sen 

 Tarda avis, another bird of the poultry kind, is so uncommon 

 with us, that I never heard of more than two of them here, 

 one of which was shot by Captain Saunders in Moulton 

 Field." 



By the end of the last and the beginning of the present 

 century, Bustards had become exceedingly scarce in their 

 southern haunts. In Devonshire, where its occurrence has 

 been recorded by Montagu, it was probably a straggler. 

 White of Selborne, in that portion of his Journal pub- 

 lished by Mr. Jesse in the second volume of his ' Gleanings 

 in Natural History,' says, " Spent three hours of this day, 

 November 17, 1782, at a lone farm-house, in the midst 

 of the downs between Andover and Winton. The carter 

 told us that about twelve years before he had seen a flock 

 of eighteen Bustards on that farm, and once since only 

 two." White adds in another place, " Bustards when seen 

 on the downs resemble fallow deer at a distance." In 

 Daniel's 'Rural Sports' it is stated, "that on the 29th of 

 September, 1800, Mr. Crouch, of Burford, shot a hen 

 Bustard on Salisbury Plain. This bird was killed at the 

 distance of forty yards with a common fowling-piece, and 

 with such shot as is generally used for partridge- shooting. 

 There were two other Bustards in company with the one 

 shot, neither of which appeared to be hurt." 



