134 The Great Bustard. 
been extinct in this county “ for more than fifty years,” as I shall 
presently proceed to show. 
In a paper “ On the habits and structure of the Great Bustard,”’ 
read before the Linnean Society in January, 1853, by Mr. Yarrell, 
that accomplished Ornithologist quotes a communication from our 
well-known Mr. Britton, respecting this bird on Salisbury Plain ; 
it is so extremely interesting that I shall not hesitate to repeat it 
in extenso. ‘A man, about four o’clock of a fine morning in June 
1801, was coming on horseback from Tinhead to Tilshead. While 
at, or near, an enclosure called Asking’s Penning, one mile from 
the village of Tilshead, he saw over his head, about sixty yards 
high as near as he could estimate, a large bird, which afterwards 
proved to be a bustard. The bird alighted on the ground imme- 
diately before the horse, which it indicated a disposition to attack, 
and in fact very soon began the onset. The man alighted, and 
getting hold of the bird endeavoured to secure it, and after strug- 
gling with it nearly an hour he succeeded, and brought it to Mr. 
J. Bartley of Tilshead, to whose house he was going. Not knowing 
the value of such a bird, he offered it to Mr. Bartley as a present ; 
but Mr. Bartley declined to accept it as such, though he much 
wished to have it, and after repeated solicitations, prevailed on the 
man to receive for it a small sum, with which he was perfectly 
satisfied. During the first week that Mr. Bartley had this bird in 
his possession, it was not known to eat anything; however, at length 
it became very tame, and would at last receive its food from its 
patron’s hands, but still continued shy in the presence of strangers. 
Its principal food was birds, chiefly sparrows, which it swallowed 
whole in the feathers with a great deal of avidity: the flowers of 
charlock and the leaves of rape formed also other parts of its food ; 
mice it would likewise eat, and in short, almost any other animal sub- 
stance. The food in passing into the stomach, was observed to go round 
the back part of the neck. Mr. Bartley is of opinion that the idea 
of the bustard’s drinking is erroneous, in support of which he says, 
that during the time this bustard was in his possession, which was 
from June till the August following, it had not a drop of water 
given it, after two or three weeks at first. This fact he considers 
a 
