i 9 2 WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 



having so often had a good feed from choice tender 

 green stuff, fed up to it as unsuspiciously as domes- 

 ticated turkeys would do. When they were well 

 within, range, the keeper gathered all his strings up 

 very gently, and pulled. Nine bustards fell to one 

 murderous discharge only one discharge out of 

 many ; but this was the greatest number he ever 

 got at one time. When it is taken into considera- 

 tion that hundreds of birds were killed in lonely 

 places, their minor haunts, so to speak, remote from 

 their noted and well-known haunts, it is no wonder 

 that this stately and noble bird, the noblest without 

 exception of all our British game-birds, was exter- 

 minated. I am well aware that at intervals, few 

 and far between, bustards have visited some of their 

 old haunts, but only to be killed there. There are 

 other gentlemen, however, who, when these birds 

 have visited their estates all honour to them have 

 done everything in their power to preserve them. 



H. M. Upcher, Esq. of Feltwell, near Brandon, 

 when he was in the fen on January 24, 1876, was 

 told by one of his men that a strange bird was 

 about ; and on going to the place pointed out he 

 saw a fine cock bustard. The bird allowed him to 



