28 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



" When a boy I remember two or three individuals in 

 a domesticated state. I recollect one of these birds 

 swallowing, in an instant, a thin leather glove which 

 I dropped." 



The local distribution of the bustard when an inhab- 

 itant of Norfolk, was, as may be gathered from the 

 foregoing paragraphs, comprised within the boundaries 

 of the "Breck" district;* indeed, scarcely any other 

 part of the county was suited to their habits, and whilst 

 their head-quarters were situated around Westacre and 

 Thetford, the latter haunt, on the extreme southern limit 

 of the county, immediately adjoined their chief stronghold 

 in Suffolk, at Icklingham and Elveden. From the two 

 centres as it were, already described, we trace them by 

 the records of birds seen or killed, or of localities in 

 which nests were occasionally discovered, diverging in 

 all directions, yet rarely overstepping their prescribed 

 bounds even when wandering in search of food during 

 hard winters. The wide sandy " Denes," on the 

 borders of the Wash, backed by rough marshes and 

 running streams, were, no doubt, at all times, a 

 favourite resort for their roving flocks at the close of 

 the breeding season. Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear 

 speak of having twice seen a male bustard in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Burnham ; and a male bird still preserved 

 at Hillington Hall, near Lynn, was trapped at Docking, 

 as ascertained by Mr. G. B. Ffolkes, more than fifty 

 years ago. As I learn, also, from a communication 

 received through my friend Mr. G. G. Fowler, the late Mr. 

 William Ffolkes remembered, when a boy, having seen 

 seven bustards, on several occasions, in the parish of 

 Hillington ; but these, from the desire of people at that 

 time to procure specimens, were soon reduced to three 

 hens, of which the last was the Dersingham bird, pur- 



* See the "Introduction" to vol. i., p. xlviii. 



