GREAT BUSTARD. 553 



the year 1808 ? The ground upon which the incident in 

 question occurred, though only some six miles distant, never 

 belonged to my family, but at the date named was part of 

 the Sledmere estate, and is now the property of Sir Tatton 

 Sykes. It is high wold land, and, no doubt, at the time 

 was open sheep walk. Agars, the keeper who fired the shot, 

 and more than one other of the same family, was (as Mr. 

 Harting has stated) in the employ of my grandfather ; but 

 it seems that in those days, when game was not plentiful 

 on the Wolds, or held in much account, considerable liberty 

 was allowed to those who cared to go even beyond the 

 boundaries of their own manors in search of such precarious 

 or arduous sport as the pursuit of Wild Geese, Dotterel, and, 

 as in this case, Great Bustards." 



Mr. Hebden's information was to the effect that to the 

 best of his recollection it would be about the year 1811 that 

 he first saw the five large Bustards on Flixton Wold, that 

 number continuing there at least two years, when two were 

 killed ; the remaining three still continued on the same Wold 

 for at least one year, when two disappeared, leaving the 

 solitary bird, which, after a length of time, was severely 

 wounded by Sir William Strickland's keeper, and found 

 some days afterwards in a turnip field near Hunmanby, by 

 the huntsman of the Scarborough Harriers, and secured. 

 Mr. A. S. Bell adds that this bird was brought to Scarborough 

 and cooked at a supper given by the hunt (Zool. 1870, p. 2063). 



Professor Newton of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 

 kindly communicates the following additional evidence : 

 " Rather more than a year ago the Master of Trinity College, 

 Dr. W. H. Thompson, told me that when he was about six or 

 seven years old he was living at York with his grandfather, 

 to whom a Bustard was sent as a present. Dr. Thompson 

 remembered going into the servants' hall or the kitchen to 

 look at it, and some one was holding it up by the legs. He 

 thought it weighed about eight or nine pounds, and it would 

 therefore be a hen bird. He supposed it had been procured 

 on the Yorkshire Wolds where he had heard Bustards once 

 existed, and that it was eaten in the house, but he had no 



