248 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



flourished about 350 years ago*: " Beside these, we have another 

 foule in Mers, more strange and uncouth than all these afore- 

 mentioned, called a Gustard, fullie so great as a swan, but in 

 colour of feathers and tast of flesh little differing from a partridge. 

 Howbeit, these birds are not verie common, neither to be scene 

 in all places, such also is their qualitie, that if they perceive their 

 egs to have been touched in their absence by man's hand (which 

 lie commonly on the bare earth) they forsake those nests and lie in 

 other places. "+ 



The occurrence of probably the last Scottish straggler is briefly 

 recorded in Fleming's British Animals in these words: "One was 

 shot in 1803 in Murrayshire, by William Young. Esq., of Borough 

 Head." 



For a history of the species in the south of England, the reader 

 is referred to Stevenson's " Birds of Norfolk," and Yarrell's 

 " British Birds." In the account given by the last named author 

 it is stated, on the authority of Mr Nicholson of Balrathkells, who 

 had hunted Bustards in the neighbourhood of Saville, that all the 

 birds he shot "had their stomachs perfectly crammed with barley, 

 both stalks and ears, the leaves of a large-leaved green weed, and 

 a kind of black beetle." A bird captured on Salisbury Plain in 

 1801, and kept in confinement by Mr Bartley, fed principally upon 

 birds chiefly sparrows which it swallowed entire, with the 

 feathers; it likewise ate mice with the same avidity. The following 

 extract from Sir Everard Home's Comparative Anatomy, vol. i., 

 p. 277, is interesting as bearing on this subject: "Understanding 

 that the Bustard in India is a favourite bird for the table, and that 

 all Bustards are there considered to be granivorous birds, I was 

 unable to reconcile this circumstance with the structure of its 

 digestive organs; but this difficulty is solved by the following 

 account of the mode of feeding of this bird, which is taken from 

 Mr Hunter's notes upon this subject, who kept a cock-bustard a 

 whole summer in his garden. It died in November, apparently 



* Born 1465. Died 1536. His principal work was a History of Scotland, 

 published in the reign of James V. 



f In a communication to the ' Field ' newspaper, I find it stated that a Great 

 Bustard was shot in the first week of January, 1871, by Mr Wm. Harvey, at 

 Fenham Marshes, near Berwick- on-Tweed, and preserved by Mr Reed, bird- 

 stuffer in that town. Mr Reed informs me that another was seen ten days 

 afterwards. 



