358 Struthionidce. 



youths to the back of the house, where their game was deposited : 

 and there, sure enough (to the utter surprise, and admiration, 

 and envy of all), the bodies of two fine Great Bustards met their 

 eyes. Then the laugh was indeed on the side of the boys, for to 

 have killed one of those grand birds, now very nearly extinct in 

 the county, both uncle and his friends would have sacrificed 

 almost anything within their power. 



For more than a quarter of a century after the extinction of the 

 native Bustard in Wiltshire, I have no trace of the visit of a 

 straggler to this county ; but within the last forty years our 

 downs have been visited by it on three occasions, viz., in 1849, 

 1856, and in 1871, which I now proceed to describe seriatim. 

 On August 31st, 1849, Mr. Waterhouse, of the British Museum, 

 a well-known naturalist, was returning with a party of friends 

 from Stonehenge, at about seven in the evening, when a Great 

 Bustard rose and flew with a heavy but tolerably rapid flight, 

 at about twenty feet above the ground. It was very wild, and 

 would not sufler itself to be approached ; though when it rose on 

 the wing it pitched again two or three times before it flew over 

 the brow of a hill and was seen no more. Mr. Waterhouse never 

 entertained any doubt of the species, and had a clear view of the 

 bird for about ten minutes. Judging from its size he conjectured 

 it to be a female* 



The next visit of this species to Wiltshire occurred on January 

 3rd, 1856, when one of Lord Ailesbury's keepers named King, 

 seeing a large bird which he could not recognise, but supposed 

 to be an eagle, flying over a part of Marlborough Forest called 

 Henswood, fired a cartridge at it, though on account of the 

 distance had little expectation of reaching it. He was not, there- 

 fore, disappointed to see the bird continue its flight, apparently 

 unharmed, and went his way thinking no more of the matter. 

 Subsequently, and apparently only a day or two after, a little boy 

 of not more than seven years old saw a large bird, crippled with a 

 broken leg, and succeeded in capturing it; and the following is his 

 own description of the occurrence, taken at the time from his own 

 * See Zcologut for 1849. p. 2590. 



