GREAT BUSTARD. 443 



" Before horse-hoeing was practised, the large wheat- 

 fields of West Norfolk were often left unhoed, and the 

 Bustards were able to nest in them undisturbed; but 

 horse-hoeing rapidly improved the farming and destroyed 

 the nesting of the Bustard." 



Mr. Alfred Newton says that of about fifteen nests of 

 which he had ascertained the locality, only three were not 

 in Rye. 



My worthy friend the late Frederick J. Nash, Esq., of 

 Bishops-Stortford, several times told me, that when he was 

 a young man, and then taking the field as a sportsman, he 

 once saw nine flights of Bustards in one day, not far from 

 Thetford, in Norfolk. Some of these birds were probably 

 seen more than once, but at that time, about the beginning 

 of the present century, the country between Thetford and 

 Brandon, and from thence southward to Mildenhall, was 

 considered to be the head-quarters of the Great Bustard 

 in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. 



From the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History 

 Magazine for August, 1855, I obtain the following par- 

 ticulars, communicated by J. Swaine, Esq. : 



" Many years ago, I should say in or about the year 

 1785 or 1786, I often heard conversations amongst the 



farmers who visited my relations at L , about the 



scarcity of Bustards on the Downs, which they attributed 

 to the heath, &c., being broken up and converted to til- 

 lage, and to the corn being weeded in the spring, whereby 

 the birds were disturbed and prevented making their nests. 

 About that time I was riding in company with my uncle, 

 from his residence to Devizes, and after passing a place 

 called Chitterne Barn, he drew my attention to some large 

 birds nearly half a mile off, standing on a hill on the 

 Down about the same distance from Tilshead Lodge (then 

 called Tilshead Buildings) : he told me they were Bustards, 



