By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 143 
but I never succeeded in killing one, though I have constantly 
partaken of those which had fallen before more patient gunners, 
who stalk them as you would a deer, and knock them over with a 
rifle or swan shot from behind a stone or bank.” Lastly, Bishop 
Stanley in his familiar history of birds tells us, “the bustard can 
fly, but its usual motion is on foot, running with such speed as 
often to rival a greyhound.” 
For the second opinion, that the young alone were thus coursed 
with dogs, I first adduce Bewick, who lived when these birds were 
not yet extinct, and who, (one would suppose), could not well have 
been mistaken as to the method of obtaining them generally adopted 
by sportsmen ; in his life-like woodcut of the Great Bustard in his 
first edition in 1800, we see in the back-ground of the picture, one 
of these birds running, pursued by greyhounds, and followed by a 
man on horseback; and in his subsequent editions, with the descrip- 
tions added to the figures, he says, ‘they are slow in taking wing, 
but run with great rapidity, and when young are sometimes taken 
with greyhounds, which pursue them with great avidity: the chase 
is said to afford excellent diversion.” My next authority for this 
opinion, is Mr. Hooper of Littleton, who has always lived on or 
near the plain, and states that he has often heard from old men, 
that in the days of bustards the shepherds were in the habit of 
hunting the young birds with their sheep dogs; he says “there can 
be no doubt of the matter as far as the practice of this neighbour- 
hood is concerned ;” but, he adds, “the older birds were too swift 
under the combined help of wings and feet, thus to be taken, and 
they were understood not to be so followed; they hunted the young 
ones before they were fully fledged.” 
With such authority for the hunting of bustards with dogs, as I 
have adduced, and I might mention much more to the same effect, 
we shall scarcely be prepared to deny the fact altogether, whether 
we incline to the belief that the old birds were so coursed, as well 
as the young, or no; for my own part, I incline to the belief that the 
old birds were occasionally so taken, though, perhaps, this was 
generally in drizzling wet weather, which was certainly the time 
usually chosen for the sport, when the birds feathers were soaked 
