ORTOLAN. 49 



William Richard Fisher, Esqrs., one is mentioned as having 

 been seen by them, which was said to have been killed near 

 Norwich. One is also recorded by Edward Hearle Rodd, Esq., 

 of Trebartha Hall, in the 'Zoologist,' page 3277, as having 

 been obtained at Trescoe, one of the Scilly Islands, on or 

 about the 8th. of October, 1851. One was shot on the 27th. 

 of April in the present year, 1852, close to the town of 

 Worthing, in Sussex, about a couple of hundred yards from 

 the sea. For this information I am indebted to W. F. W. Bird, 

 Esq., who had it from Mr. Cooper, of Radnor-Street, London. 



Meyer says of these birds that they prefer the borders of 

 woods, hedges, and fields, especially if near water; that they 

 also visit gardens, and frequent the banks of rivulets clothed 

 with low willows and other bushes, and districts intersected 

 with ditches and marshy tracts; and that from their wooded 

 retreats they visit the neighbouring fields of stubble, turnips, 

 and millet, but are seldom seen in open meadows. He adds 

 that they are said to shew themselves but little, in which 

 respect they differ from the others of their kind that are 

 found in this country, which are all of them remarkable for 

 perching in exposed situations, where they are easily visible. 



Great numbers of Ortolans are captured in nets, and pre- 

 served for the table, being esteemed a great delicacy by the 

 foreign 'gourmands.' They are kept most easily in captivity, 

 and being supplied abundantly with food, pass almost their 

 whole time in feeding, so that they unwittingly hasten on 

 their destruction by the same means as, although in a different 

 way from, some notorious glutton, of whom it was said that 

 he committed suicide with his teeth: it would be well if such 

 a habit were confined to the birds, and were shared in common 

 with them by none who rank higher in the scale of nature. 

 Even in the time of the Romans, that is to say, in their 

 later times, when their luxuriousness and effeminacy necessi- 

 tated the destruction of the empire, they too thus committed 

 political suicide: the Ortolan was valued on the same account 

 that has rendered it an object of quest ever since. 



It is a migratory species, Africa being its winter, and 

 Europe its summer residence. Bechstein remarks that its 

 migration is so exact and regular, that when one has been 

 seen in a particular spot, especially in the spring, it is sure 

 to be found there the following year at the same time. This 

 is, however, equally the case with many other migratory birds, 

 as well as with the one at present before us. The rule is, 



VOL. III. E 



