Great Bustard. 363 



get within 80 or 100 yards, and failed to secure it. He describes 

 it as running with considerable swiftness, and agrees with me 

 in thinking that its wings would stretch at least 6 feet. It 

 appeared to be feeding in a strip of the thousand-headed cabbage, 

 the stalks of which were very long, thus affording, at the same 

 time, both food and shelter.' 



Two days after the capture of the Maddington Bustard 

 viz., on Wednesday, January 25th, as I learnt from a second 

 letter from Mr. Stevens, as well as from several other kind 

 friends another Great Bustard was shot in the parish of Berwick 

 St. James, very near Maddington. Two birds were seen to- 

 gether on the estate of Mr. William Pinckney, and were watched 

 through a glass as they were feeding in a turnip-field. As they 

 seemed remarkably shy and suspicious,, precautions were taken 

 to circumvent them ; and by a little manoeuvring, and by placing 

 men so as to drive them in the required direction, one of them 

 a fine male was shot in the wing, and so crippled as to be easily 

 taken. It weighed nearly 10 lb., stood upwards of 3 feet in 

 height, and measured from the point of the beak to the end of 

 tail 44 inches, and across the wings 6 feet 8 inches. The female 

 might also have been captured, but in the excitement of the 

 moment was allowed to escape, and she went off in the direction 

 of Chitterne. 



It cannot be doubted that the female shot at Maddington on 

 January 23rd and its three companions, and the solitary bird 

 seen at Gore Cross on the same day by Mr. Stratton, and the fine 

 male killed at Berwick on January 25th, and its companion 

 which escaped, would all belong to the original flock of seven 

 which had been observed, but no particular notice taken of 

 them, on the Maddington Downs, and which had become 

 scattered into several small parties, and dispersed over the 

 neighbouring downs. 



It was not, I am afraid, a very hospitable reception which 

 these Great Bustards met with, on coming to visit the original 

 haunts of their relatives ; and if any of them survived and 

 returned across the Channel to their own quarters they would 



