GREAT BITSTAED. 3 



that the Great Bustard was at one time common in that county ; 

 so it doubtless was on the Lincolnshire Wolds, but it is now 

 extinct as an inhabitant. Dr. Plomley records in the 'Zoologist,' 

 page 2700, the occurrence of one, a female, at Lydd on 

 Romney Marsh, Kent, January 4th., 1850, and the species 

 would appear, he says, to have been not uncommon there 

 formerly. In Devonshire one is recorded by John Gatcombe, 

 Esq., in 'The Naturalist,' vol. ii, page 33, as having been 

 shot on December 31st., 1851, at Millaton Bridestowe. In 

 Cornwall one was met with the beginning of 1843, on the 

 open moor country between Helston and the Lizard Point; 

 it was a female. 



In Scotland it was formerly met with, but Sir Robert Sibbald 

 mentions it as being rare in his day; one was shot in 

 Moray shire in 1803, by W. Young, Esq., of Boroughead. 



In Ireland it was enumerated by Smith in 1749 as one of 

 the birds of the county of Cork, but it has long since become 

 extinct there, as well as now in this part of the kingdom. If 

 some feathered 'Rip Van Winkle' of the 'good old times' 

 could revisit the scenes he frequented in the 'days that are 

 gone,' he would so little recognise them as the same, that he 

 would not wonder that none of his kind were still to be 

 found in haunts now rendered so unsuitable to them. 



The Bustard has been domesticated, but is said to continue 

 fierce towards strangers, and not to breed in confinement. 

 It is naturally a wild bird, and frequents in winter open 

 barren places, from whence it is only compelled by stress of 

 severe weather, when the snow is deep, to approach nearer 

 to country villages; in the summer, however, the nest being 

 placed in cultivated places, where the young are brought up, 

 they and the dams find their living among corn. The males 

 are polygamous, and leave the females as soon as the task of 

 incubation commences, both then living separate for a few 

 weeks. The young families unite together in the autumn, 

 and in winter congregate still more, forming flocks of from 

 four or five to about forty or fifty, or even, it is said, a 

 couple of hundreds; in the spring they again separate. These 

 birds are very fine eating, the young especially, at about a 

 year old. In the spring the males, in small parties of three 

 or four, strut about, with drooped wings and spread set-up 

 tails, shewing themselves off to excite admiration. 



In flight their wings are moved slowly, but if suddenly 

 disturbed it would appear that they rise suddenly to a height 



