142 The Great Bustard. 
old and young were hunted down with dogs, Brooks in his Orni- 
thology in 1771, above-quoted, says of the bustard in France, near 
Chalons, “sometimes fowlers shoot them as they lie concealed behind 
some eminence, or on a load of straw; others take them with grey- 
hounds, which often catch them before they are able to rise.” 
Yarrell in his article on the bustard in his “British Birds,” quotes 
the Rev. Richard Lubbock for the following, “A very fine bird, 
an old male, is still in preservation as a stuffed specimen, at the 
house of a friend, in my neighbourhood, which was taken by grey- 
hounds 40 years ago, within three miles of Norwich.” Again, Mark 
Antony Lower in his “Contributions to Literature,” (1854), says, 
“The South Downs afford a fine field for the Naturalist as well as 
the sportsman; one cannot but regret, however, the extinction of 
some of the animals which they formerly nourished, particularly 
that fine indigenous bird, the bustard or wild turkey. ~The grand- 
father of the present writer was among the last who joined in the 
sport, about the middle of the last century, of hunting down the 
!” andina 
last remains of the species with dogs and bludgeons 
note which I have lately received from that gentleman, he adds 
“ My grandfather, John Lower of Alfriston, was born in 1735: he 
was a boy at the time he went a-hunting bustards, and we may 
assume the year 1750 as about the period: my friend the late Mr. 
John Dudeny of this town, (Lewes), a shepherd in his youth, and 
the son of a shepherd, told me that his father, who must have been 
cotemporary with my grandfather, had also taken part in bustard 
hunting in his youthful days:” and, he adds, “I have no hesitation 
in saying, that fully grown birds were hunted down with dogs, 
though I have never heard it mentioned what kind of dogs were 
employed.” The next witness I adduce for the hunting of bustards 
generally on the ground, is the Honorable Robert Curzon, in his 
recent work on “Armenia and Erzeroum.” At p. 145 he says, “ Later 
in the year I risked my neck by riding as hard as I could tear, 
over the rocky, or rather stony, plains at the foot of the mountains 
after the Great Bustard; I have more than once knocked some of 
the feathers out of these glorious huge birds, as they ran at a 
terrible pace, half flying and scrambling before my straining horse, 
