432 STKUTHIONIM. 



ceeded in domesticating this species." In a note at the 

 foot of page 197 in Mr. Bennett's edition of White's Sel- 

 borne, it is stated, " that two birds of this kind, male and 

 female, have been kept in the garden ground belonging to 

 the Norwich Infirmary, and have but lately been sold by 

 the owner of them. The male bird was very beautiful 

 and courageous, apparently afraid of nothing, seizing any 

 one that came near him by the coat ; yet on the appear- 

 ance of any small Hawk, high in the air, he would squat 

 close to the ground, expressing strong marks of fear. The 

 female was very shy." The Rev. Richard Lubbock sent 

 me word that a female Bustard bred near Thetford in 

 1832, and carried off her young ones. This nest was upon 

 a warren, but it is most commonly placed in rye. Mr. 

 Elwes shot a female to a pointer in a turnip field at 

 Congham in the autumn of 1831. The continuation of 

 these notes is as follows : " I know one instance of a 

 specimen killed on the contrary side of Norfolk to that 

 which they generally affect. About ten years ago a 

 person returning home in the parish of Palling, upon the 

 coast, near Winterton, saw an immense bird walking in a 

 marsh by the roadside. He rode home, brought his gun, 

 and shot it ; it proved to be a male Bustard of the second 

 year, and is now in the collection of Mr. Postle, a near 

 relation of mine. This is exactly the opposite part of the 

 county to that in which they are generally found. When 

 a boy, I remember two or three individuals in a domesti- 

 cated state. I recollect one of these birds swallowing, in an 

 instant, a thin leather glove which I dropped. The system 

 of weeding out corn in the spring has tended perhaps more 

 than any other cause to the decrease of Bustards ; since 

 egg-collectors became numerous, a nest is a valuable prize 

 indeed. A very fine bird, an old male, is still in pre- 

 servation, as a stuffed specimen, at the house of a friend in 



