OF SELBORNE. 



143 



sion Island, and many other desolate places, mariners have 

 found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that they 

 would stand still to be taken ; as is the case with boobies, 

 &c. As an example of what is advanced, I remark that the 

 golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird) will stand 



BUSTARD. 



unconcerned till you come within three or four yards of it, 

 while the bustard (Otis), the largest British land fowl, does 

 not care to admit a person within so many furlongs. 1 



1 " Besides the barren ' brecks ' of Norfolk and Suffolk, the great 

 bustard, on good authority, appears in former times to have been ex- 

 tremely common on all the open parts of this island which were suited 

 to its habits the elevated moors of Haddingtonshire and Berwickshire, 

 the desolate wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Newmarket and 

 Royston Heaths on the borders of Cambridgeshire, together with the 

 downs of Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Southampton, and .Sussex 



