



XXXIX. THE RETURN OF THE GREAT 

 BUSTARD 



A SMALL flock of great bustards, temporarily kept 

 at the Zoo, was recently imported from Spain, and 

 one or more pairs of these birds were, it was said, to 

 be turned out on an old haunt of the species on the 

 Yorkshire Wolds. It is not so much matter for 

 surprise that the restoration of this, the largest of 

 our native birds, is about to be attempted now, but 

 that it has not been tried earlier, and on a larger scale. 

 It would be unsafe to assume that because the caper- 

 cailzie now flourishes in the Scotch woods, the permanent 

 restoration of the bustard to its ancient haunts on the 

 Wiltshire Downs, the Wolds, and the Norfolk heaths 

 and ' brecks ' is equally possible. But though some 

 species refuse utterly to acquiesce in change either of 

 habit or environment, and, like the black tern, the 

 avocet, and the bartailed godwit, migrate to seek else- 

 where what they no longer find in this country, there is 



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