Crane Great Bustard 83 



office for several years at Pembroke Hall. It is moreover 

 extremely unlikely that it should not have bred in the 

 Fens, if it did so in the adjoining counties, the only other 

 interpretation to be put upon Turner's words. About fifty 

 years later Dr Thomas Muffet corroborates the fact to some 

 extent (cf. Yarrell, Hist. Brit. Birds, ed. iv. p. 180), and 

 indeed it is perfectly certain that the bird was quite common 

 in early times in Britain, when it was a frequent quarry for a 

 Falcon. King John, for instance, procured seven individuals at 

 Ashwell in this county in December 1212. The Crane occurred 

 at all seasons of the year, and was met with in large flocks 

 until after 1678, though at that date Willughby tells us 

 that he was unable to record an instance of its nesting. The 

 exact date of its final disappearance as a breeding species, 

 and even as an abundant immigrant, is quite uncertain; 

 but Pennant in 1768 concluded that it had forsaken Britain. 

 Bones have been occasionally found in the Cambridgeshire 

 peat and at Lynn in Norfolk. 



11. Otis tarda (Linn.). Great Bustard. 



This fine bird, which was an abundant resident in many 

 parts of England until the beginning of last century, and 

 used at one time to occur also in the south of Scotland, was 

 probably more plentiful in the eastern counties than else- 

 where, and so continued until about 1812, though exact 

 dates cannot be given, and but few individuals remained 

 by that time in other parts of England. The last nests, 

 in Norfolk and Suffolk, were found in 1832, but solitary 

 hens seem to have dropped an occasional egg at random 

 for some six years later. The use of the horse-hoe for weeding 

 purposes after the corn began to be sown in drills is said to 

 have been the final cause of extermination in Norfolk, but the 

 cultivation of lands that were formerly waste, and the extension 

 of plantations, must have greatly reduced the numbers of 

 the birds there and elsewhere. Newmarket and Royston 

 Heaths were well-known resorts of the Bustard in olden times, 



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