STRAY NATURE-NOTES 267 



October i6th One at noon. i8th Two in the 

 morning. 



" 1882, April ist Four rooks a good deal about 

 the old nests. 2nd Three about them, one of 

 them keeping guard over one of the old nests. 

 3rd Three or four about them. 4th One of the 

 old nests built on. 5th The last remains of the 

 other of the old nests blown away to nothing by 

 a high wind." This was the finale. From these 

 notes it will be seen that nothing came of all the 

 coming and going in the second year beyond the 

 partial repairing of one of the nests. 



The East Riding wold country must in former 

 years have been a " happy hunting-ground " for the 

 ornithologist. Its wide, open tracts, well-wooded 

 valleys here and there, and its comparative nearness 

 to the sea, afforded natural characteristics favourable 

 for the occurrence within its boundaries of a widely 

 varied congeries of species. 



In the first half of the present century few birds 

 were more interesting to those dwelling on the 

 wolds of Yorkshire than the Bustard. During part 

 of that time these birds used to breed in the parish 

 of Nunburnholme, and there are those still living 

 who remember to have seen them in the neighbour- 

 hood. It interested my father greatly to learn from 

 one of his parishioners in 1876 that he remembered 

 a nest of the Bustard having been found in the 

 parish, and described the egg, which he had seen 

 accurately. Many, no doubt, claimed to possess as 

 a specimen the last bird known to have been shot 



