6 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Spaing where they still abound, the cock birds in 

 Andalucia are known to part company from the hens 

 in the month of May, and, leaving the latter on the 

 uplands, betake themselves to the marshes. Still, 

 however, to quote once more from Mr. Newton's notes, 

 a small flock of hen bustards, including the parents of 

 the eggs mentioned, continued to occupy the country 

 around Swaffham for some years longer, but there is no 

 record of any cock bird having been observed it is, there- 

 fore, a sad reflection when we think that had a male bird 

 been procured from the continent, and liberated in that 

 district, the great bustard might still have been an 

 indigenous bird in this country. Be this as it may the 

 hen birds are asserted to have dropped eggs at random, 

 continually, as the season came round, without taking 

 the trouble to form their usual slight nests and this 

 continued until the year 1838. In the month of 

 February of that year, a female bustard was brought 

 to the Cambridge market, where it was bought by Mr. 

 Smith, the butler of Pembroke Hall, for Mr. William 

 Borrer, of Cowfold, in Sussex, then an undergraduate 

 of Peterhouse, in whose possession it still remains; 



* Lord Lilford, who has had recent opportunities of observing 

 these birds in Spain and has very kindly favoured me with 

 several notes respecting them, states that "They are extremely 

 common in all the central and southern parts of that country suited 

 to their habits, particularly in the immense plains of Estremadura, 

 the valley of the Guadalquivir, about Seville, the arid, treeless, 

 plains of La Mancha and old Castile. The main body arrive in 

 the country early in March, and about the middle of April pair. 

 My own impression is they are not strictly polygamous, though 

 instances thereof often happen. The greater number leave Spain, 

 about October, though a good many always remain in Andalucia 

 during the winter. I- have seen upwards of a hundred together 

 near Seville, in April; and I believe in the autumn, after harvest, 

 they collect in immense numbers in the grass marshes below that 

 town." 



