366 



INFLUENCES OF CULTIVATION 



No group of animals has suffered in this respect more 

 than the birds of the plains. Indeed, it seems as if cultiva- 

 tion, which has already blotted some of them from the fauna 

 of Scotland, may in time exterminate the whole race of these 

 ground-nesting birds which for safety prefer speed of limb 

 to flight much as flightless birds have disappeared wherever 

 they have encountered civilization. 



No larger or more handsome bird ever lived and bred 

 in Britain than the GREAT BUSTARD (Otis tarda). Once it 





Fig. 62. Great Bustard (male and female) formerly a native of Scotland. T \ nat. size. 



may have nested in the Lowlands of Scotland in numbers such 

 as still are to be found in outlying districts of Spain, far from 

 the bustle of mankind; but already in the sixteenth century 

 the spread of cultivation had reduced it to a last remnant. 

 Of its occurrence in the Merse in Berwickshire, Hector 

 Boece says : 



Beside thir thre uncouth kind of fowlis [capercailyie, muir-fowl, and black- 

 game], is ane uthir kind of fowlis in the Mers, mair uncouth, namit gustardis, 

 als mukle as ane swan ; hot in colour of thair fedderis, and gust [taste] of 

 thair flesche, thay ar litil different fra ane pertrick [partridge]. Thir last 



