32 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



I have taken some pains to ascertain, as far as it is 

 now possible to do so, the history of such Norfolk and 

 Suffolk-killed bustards as are still preserved in public or 

 private collections, and to this list of stuffed specimens 

 I have also added a few particulars respecting well 

 authenticated eggs, from both counties. 



In the Norwich museum is a magnificent pair, 

 presented by Mr. J. H. Gurney, in 1843, and an adult 

 female, by Mr. Hill Leathes, in the following year. 

 The former (Nos. 183 and 183a) in full adult plumage, 

 were originally in the collection of Mr. John Scales, 

 who has informed me that the male was found dead 

 on Beach am well warren some time between 1815 and 

 1818, having been, it was believed, previously shot 

 at and wounded at Narborough by Mr. B. Sanders, 

 then on a visit to that place. The warreners were 

 attracted to the spot where it lay by some crows, 

 which had picked out the eye. It appeared to have 

 been dead some two or three days, having been hit 

 in the lower part of the body, and had become so 

 putrid that Mr. Scales had to remove a large piece of 

 the skin. It, however, then weighed twenty-four 

 pounds. The female was obtained in 1831, on 

 Westacre-field, and was caught in one of about four 

 dozen rabbit-traps, set by Mr. Scales amongst the 

 turnips. This bird weighed either sixteen or eighteen 

 pounds. The history of the second female (No. 183b) 

 is somewhat more doubtful, but the late Mr. H. M. 

 Leathes, in a letter to Mr. Gurney in 1853, stated that 



is to be found in the writings of most of the German ornithologists, 

 but a very striking confirmation was also given by many of the 

 newspaper correspondents with the Crimean army in the winter of 

 1855-6, when a large number of these birds suddenly appeared, it 

 is said from the eastward, on the steppes between Sebastopol and 

 Balaklava then occupied by the allied forces. A fine male then 

 obtained is in the possession of Mr. Alfred Newton. 



