rT, 
By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 139 
But the last Wiltshire bustard, figured at the head of this paper, 
occurred as lately as January last, and is an undoubted male, and a 
very fine specimen; the particulars of its capture were as follows.— 
Very early in January, one of Lord Ailesbury’s keepers named 
King, seeing a large bird which he could not recognize, ‘but sup- 
posed to be an eagle, flying over a part of Marlborough Forest 
called Henswood, fired a cartridge at it, though from the distance 
had little expectation of reaching it; he was not therefore disap- 
pointed to see the bird continue its flight, apparently unharmed, 
and went away thinking no more of the matter. Subsequently, and 
apparently only a day or two after, a little boy of not more than seven 
years old, saw a large bird, crippled with a broken leg, and succeeded 
in capturing it, and the following is his own description of 
the occurrence, taken at the time from his own lips, and obligingly 
communicated to me by Mr. W. H. Rowland, of Hungerford, 
who afterwards purchased the bird. “I was going to Starve-all 
farm with my brother’s dinner, about twelve o’clock, and passing 
along the edge of about a ten-acre field of turnips, I saw a great 
red bird laid down and fluttering away, he was close to the side of 
the turnips, I went to him and he tried to flutter away; he came 
at me and bit my fingers, but did not hurt me much, and as he put 
out his great wings, I caught hold of one, and dragged him along, 
pretty near a quarter of a mile, up to ‘Starve-all,’ where a man 
broke his neck: the bird wasn’t dirty when I first saw him, I made 
him so pulling him along the field; the bird made a terrible row 
with his wings on the barn floor, after his neck was broken: one 
of the men put the bird on my back, and I held his head in my 
hand and carried him home to mother; he was main heavy, and I 
couldn’t scarce get along with him.” So far we have the account 
of the little boy himself, the fortunate captor of the last British 
bustard, but it appears farther that there was a council of war held 
over the bird, (when the boy first took it into the barn alive), by 
all the labourers, who were just at that time assembled at dinner, 
and it was very nearly decided to pick it and dress it then and there, 
but the little boy’s brother claimed it for him, so one of the men 
killed it, that the boy might carry it home better. Later in the 
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