Great Bustard. 351 



less sheltering themselves in the most retired spots they could 

 find, and gradually diminishing in number, is not very easy to 

 .ascertain; but from all the evidence I could gather, I have 

 reason to think they were not entirely exterminated quite so 

 early as has been surmised. Before, however, I proceed to record 

 the testimony of eye and ear witnesses of the occurrence of rare 

 specimens in Wiltshire in the early part of this century, I would 

 quote a very interesting paragraph, headed ' The Bustard of 

 Salisbury Plain/ which appeared in the Wiltshire Independent 

 in 1854, and was afterwards copied into the Times: 'There are 

 people now living in Wiltshire who recollect the time when it 

 was the custom of the Mayor of Salisbury to have a bustard as a 

 prominent dish at the annual inauguration feast ; and these 

 birds, once numerous on the wild and then uncultivated expanse 

 of Salisbury Plain, could at length only be shot by means of a 

 vehicle so covered by bushes and placed in their haunts as to 

 enable men therein concealed to bring them down at a long 

 range. For more than fifty years the Wiltshire Bustard has 

 been extinct, and the Mayor of Salisbury has been obliged to 

 forego his yearly delicacy.' I do not know who was the writer 

 of this curious and interesting passage, but he is certainly incor- 

 rect in stating that the Bustard had then been extinct in this 

 county ' for more than fifty years/ as I shall presently proceed 

 to show. Maton, in his ' Natural History of Wiltshire/ says : 

 * A very observant and credible person, of the name of Dew, 

 whom I knew as a sportsman in my younger days, informed me, 

 in the year 1796, that he once saw as many as seven or eight of 

 these birds together on the downs near Winterbourne Stoke; but 

 I have not met with anyone since who has actually seen the 

 Bustard in Wiltshire subsequently to that year/ Others, how- 

 ever, were more fortunate; and we have many published accounts 

 of it since that date, as we shall see further on. Bewick, writing 

 in 1797, says: 'Bustards were formerly more frequent in this 

 island than at present; they are now found only in the open 

 -countries of the south and east, in the plains of Wiltshire and 

 Dorsetshire, and in some parts of Yorkshire/ Daniel, in his 



