PREFACE. 



IN completing a second though not final volume of the 

 " Birds of Norfolk/ 5 I feel that some explanation is 

 due not only as to the unavoidable delay in its publica- 

 tion but as to the motives which have induced me to 

 extend the former plan of the work. I should state, then, 

 that in the endeavour to render my account of the Great 

 Bustard as complete as possible, with reference alike 

 to its habits and habitat, when an indigenous species in 

 Norfolk, and to the history of such specimens of either 

 birds or eggs as are still preserved in public and private 

 collections, I was led into so considerable an amount of 

 correspondence that this paper had been but recently 

 completed, when read, in a condensed form, before 

 Section D, of the British Association, at their meeting 

 in Norwich, in 1868. This species, therefore, which, 

 according to the classification I have adopted, properly 

 commenced the present volume, may be said to have 

 stopped the way for a considerable period, and has 

 thus been the chief cause of a delay which I certainly 

 have less reason to regret, since it has enabled me to 

 put on record facts, retained only in the memory of our 

 oldest inhabitants, and which a very few years hence 

 would have been procurable only in a traditionary, and, 

 therefore, far less reliable form. 



There are but few individuals now living who re- 

 member the Great Bustard in Norfolk and Suffolk even 

 in its latter days, and fewer still are the octogenarians 

 who can recall the appearance of this noble species 

 when still existing in " droves" in the Thetford or 



