CHAPTER IX, 



BXJSTARD SHOOTING. 



As the reader's acquaintance with this bird, once 

 the pride of our wild feathered tribes, will most pro- 

 bably be confined to such specimens as he shall cul- 

 tivate an acquaintance with in a museum, a very 

 short allusion to its sporting annals will suffice for 

 his curiosity on that head. According to old Mark- 

 ham, a stalking-horse was even in his day essential to 

 enable the pursuer to accomplish a shot; and the 

 shepherds were wont to dress out a hurdle with green 

 boughs, behind which the sportsman would lie in 

 wait for his game. From this it will be gathered, 

 that it is very long since Bustard shooting was com- 

 mon to our island. In the year 1800, Daniel says, 

 there was one shot which measured six feet from the 

 tip of one wing to the tip of the other; and three 

 feet from the point of the beak to the extremity of 

 the tail. Buffon tells us, that one was shot in 

 France, in his time, which had " no less than ninety 



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