Strutkiohidce. 



fortnight subsequent to the taking of this bird, Mr. Grant, a 

 respectable farmer of Tilshead, was returning from Warminster 

 Market, and near Tilshead Lodge (which is something more than 

 half a mile from the village) was attacked in a similar manner, 

 by, as it is thought, the mate of the same bird. Mr. Grant's 

 horse being rather high-mettled, took fright, became un- 

 manageable, and ran off, and consequently Mr. Grant was com- 

 pelled to abandon his design of endeavouring to capture the 

 bird.' Such is the account communicated by Mr. Britton, and, 

 with reference to the bird kept by Mr. Bartley, I have further 

 learnt, through the kindness of the late Rev. E. Wilton, that it 

 was kept in a kind of staked cage, made for it in a little close 

 belonging to the house, and that several Bustards used to come 

 and congregate round their confined companion at that date, and 

 that people often used to hear them at night. The confined bird 

 is described to have been a kind of spotted turkey. At that date 

 the good people of Tilshead affirm there were many Bustards 

 haunting the flat between that village and Shrewton ; they were 

 also in some abundance near what was long known as the 

 Bustard Inn. Mr. Coleman, of Tilshead, said he perfectly recol- 

 lected how horses travelling over the plain were known to shy 

 at the noise of the Bustards. The late Mr. Robert Pinckney, of 

 Berwick St. James, bore witness that during his occupation of 

 Mr. Duke's farm at Lake the Bustard used to make its nest 

 every year in the water-meadows belonging to the estate, and was 

 disturbed annually by the mowers. Again, Mr. Compton, of East- 

 cott, described as a great sportsman and bird-studier, was known 

 to have shot two of these birds: while an old whip of Squire 

 Tinker's, carried nolens volens down a steep 'linchet' in the 

 ardour of the chase, almost rode over two Bustards, and could 

 have struck them with his whip, had he been prepared to en- 

 counter such tenants of the linchet's base : he said ' they were 

 spotted all's one as a pheasant.' Mr. William Wyndham, of 

 Dinton, informs me that his grandfather saw a hen Bustard on 

 the wing at Uphaven on November 27th, 1801. Mr. B. Hay ward, 

 of Easterton, near Devizes, more than once recounted to me that 



