[APPENDIX B.j BIKDS OF NORFOLK. 399 



day, & generally on the same spot ; & I have found 

 from observations that a female will frequent a certain 

 field, undisturbed, for near a month before she deposits 

 her eggs, which is generally about the 12th of May. 

 There was a nest destroyed by the weeders last year 

 near the spot I can generally see the one in question. 

 I wish you would pay me a visit, & I think I could show 

 you some. I am certain in winter, if not in summer ; 

 & I am now confident in asserting that the males come 

 & visit the females, as they are never seen together at 

 this season of the year." (" Trans. Norf. and Norw. 

 Nat. Soc.," ii., pp. 400, 401.) 



Nine years later (1833) Mr. Lubbock has a note : 

 " At present four bustards known about Congham and 

 Westacre, supposed all females; no increase among 

 them." 



I find the following note, dated November 30, 1870, 

 in Mr. Stevenson's handwriting : 



" Mr. Drake, late of Billingford, told me to-day he had 

 recently seen Tom Saul (late coachman to Cromer in 

 Windham's time), and talking of bustards, he said some- 

 where about 1830 he remembered riding with the late A. 

 Hamond and Mr. Fountaine of Narford, near Walton 

 Bottom, below Westacre Field, where they saw some- 

 thing at a distance he could not make out, but took for 

 sheep troughs." Mr. Hamond offered to make a bet 

 that the objects were bustards. "Saul rode on, the 

 birds rose and fled, and Mr. Hamond remarked, 'did 

 you ever see sheep troughs take wing before. 3 Saul was 

 of age in 1831, and this was about that time. . . . 

 Mr. Drake says he has somewhere a bustard's egg given 

 to his father by the late Mr. Downes, of Gunton, and his 

 father always understood it was found on Beechamwell 

 Common." 



To Colonel Feilden I am indebted for the following 

 extracts, copied by him from the Holkham game book, 

 and given to me with the Earl of Leicester's approval : 



" 1814. Oct. 7. Mr. Butcher killed a bustard on 

 his farm and sent it here. 



"1816. Nov. 11. [after a list of the birds killed by 

 the different guns]. Wild day. Lord Spencer saw 

 three bustards. 



