THE BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



OTIS TAEDA, Linnaeus. 

 GREAT BUSTARD. 



WITH almost kindred feelings to those with which one 

 contemplates, in the human race, the extinction of 

 some great historic name, the naturalist, at least, regards 

 the extermination amongst us of this noble indi- 

 genous species ; and in either case we mark the same 

 final cause the failure of " heirs male." It is singular, 

 however, considering the interest that appears to have 

 attached, at all times, to so fine a bird, that our printed 

 records of its ways and means should be, for the most 

 part, so brief and unsatisfactory, and that the biography 

 of the Great Bustard, like that of many other celebrities, 

 should have remained to be written after it had ceased 

 to exist, as a resident, on British soil. Of its general 

 history pretty full particulars may be gleaned from the 

 well-known works of Selby, Yarrell, Gould, and others ; 

 and to this, therefore, I need not refer; but I shall 

 endeavour to give as complete an account as possible of 

 the Bustard in its special character of a Norfolk bird, 

 and I have it fortunately in my power to make public 

 a considerable amount of information hitherto unavail- 

 able. In particular I must mention that Mr. Alfred 

 Newton (Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 

 in the University of Cambridge), who has long been 

 collecting materials for a complete monograph of this 



