NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



a considerable sum in those days. It is difficult to 

 understand how our forefathers could have extracted 

 any kind of pleasure from the flesh of this bird — now 

 seldom heard of in this country — or from that of the 

 heron, which was at the same period priced at twelve 

 pence. The bittern, valued at the same period at 

 twelve pence, and in 1833 at from five shillings to 

 seven shillings, would scarcely be regarded at the 

 present time, even if it were common, as a bird likely 

 to lend itself to good eating. It is now distinctly one 

 of our rare visitants, having ceased, with perhaps one 

 or two exceptions in the Norfolk Broad country, to 

 breed in these islands for more than a generation past. 

 In the winter of 1899 there was an unwontedly strong 

 migration of these birds, which were shot in many 

 English counties. I never heard of any person having 

 the hardihood to have one cooked, or if he did so and 

 partook of the long -forgotten dainty, he preferred to 

 keep his impressions to himself. If the bittern had 

 been worth eating, according to our modern ideas, I 

 think we should have heard of the fact during that 

 winter. I have always regretted that I never tasted 

 a bittern in South Africa, where these birds are 

 common enough. 



Of the great bustard, that prince of edible sporting 

 birds, I speak in another chapter. Once a much and 

 deservedly esteemed dainty on English tables, it is 

 now, perforce, from the very rarity of its occurrence, a 

 quite forgotten bird. Of old the pride of the banquet 

 of many a high, noble, and well-acred squire, its fame 

 is now no other than a mere tradition among us. Yet, 

 until the beginning of the last century, these birds 

 were familiar to British sportsmen. So lately as the 

 year 1808, near the estate of Mr. W. T. St. Quintin, 

 on the Yorkshire wolds, by aid of a stalking-horse and 



28 



