LITTLE BUSTARD. 427 



THE LITTLE BUSTARD can only be considered an acci- 

 dental, and, generally, a winter visiter to this country ; the 

 male has never been killed here in the plumage assumed 

 during the breeding season, that I am aware of ; nor has 

 the nest, or the eggs been found ; and most of the speci- 

 mens, of which many are recorded, some of them males, 

 have occurred in the winter half year, that is, from the 

 middle of autumn to the middle of spring, both sexes, 

 during that period, wearing the same livery. 



Mr. Thompson, of Belfast, has stated that two birds of 

 this rare species were seen in the county of Wicklow on the 

 23rd of August 1883, and one of them was shot by Mr. 

 Reside, for whom it was set up by Mr. W. S. Wall, bird- 

 preserver, Dublin. Mr. Couch mentions that two or three 

 specimens have occurred in Cornwall, one of which he has 

 seen. Three instances are also recorded of the appearance 

 of this bird in Devonshire, and a fourth was obtained so 

 lately as the 15th of November 1839. The Earl of 

 Malmesbury has in his collection a female specimen killed 

 at Heron Court, near Christchurch, Hants. To F. Holme, 

 Esq., I am indebted for the knowledge of a specimen that 

 was shot on Denton Common in Oxfordshire, in December 



1833. One was killed at Chatham, in Kent, in January 



1834. Three specimens have been obtained in Essex, one 

 of which, a female, killed at Harwich in January 1823, is 

 in my own collection ; a second was killed at Little Clac- 

 ton in the winter of 1824, and a third very recently near 

 Chelmsford, for the knowledge of the occurrence of which I 

 am indebted to Mr. G. Meggy. This species has been 

 killed in Suffolk, in Cambridgeshire, and several times in 

 Norfolk, one example of which was in the collection of 

 the late Mr. Sparshall of Norwich. In October 1839, two 

 Little Bustards were seen near Birmingham, as I learn 



