98 Great Bustards. 



The idea that bustards eat young lambs, &c., no 

 doubt, as remarked by Mr. Howard Saunders, 

 " arose from a confusion not uncommon at the 

 present day between the names Bustard and 

 Buzzard" In 1713 Ray wrote: "In campis 

 spatiosis circa Novum Mercatum et Royston, 

 oppida in agro Cantabrigiensi, inque planitie, ut 

 audio, Salisburiensi, et alibi in vastis et apertis 

 locis, invenitur. 77 And in 1763 Dr. Brookes tells 

 us : "This bird is bred in several parts of Europe, 

 and particularly in England, especially on Salis- 

 bury Plain, Newmarket and Royston Heaths, in 

 Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk, for it delights in 

 open spaces. The flesh is in high esteem, and 

 perhaps the more so because it is not very easy 

 to come at." This author further tells us that 

 " they take them with a hook baited with an apple 

 or flesh. 77 In 1770 Gilbert White, in a letter 

 written from Ringmer, near Lewes, to the Hon. 

 Daines Barrington, says, " There are bustards on 

 the wide downs near Brightelmstone " ; in another 

 place he tells us, "Bustards when seen on the 

 downs resemble fallow deer at a distance. 77 In 

 the early years of the present century the species 

 had become very scarce in this country. Montagu, 

 in his "Ornithological Dictionary, 77 published in 

 1802, says that on Salisbury Plain it had become 

 "very scarce within these few years, 77 from the 

 great price given for the eggs and young to hatch 

 and rear in confinement, half a guinea being no 

 unusual price for an egg, and ten or twelve guineas 



