340 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
if nothing is done to check the increase of these depredations in the future, 
the moss will eventually cease to be of much value for sporting purposes. 
In addition to the Gulls and Grouse, Wild Ducks, Teal, Curlews and Snipe 
breed on the moss; and a short distance off, across the river, is a good- 
sized heronry. It is scarcely necessary to add that all these birds are 
carefully preserved by the owner of the property—W. ArtHur DurnrorD 
(Barrow-in-Furness). 
Tue Great BusTaRD FORMERLY IN LiNcoLNsHIRE.—We learn from 
Mr. Cordeaux’s ‘ Birds of the Humber District’ (pp. 83-85) that the Great 
Bustard, “formerly inhabiting the desolate wolds of Lincolnshire and 
Yorkshire, has passed away, leaving in the former county scareely a 
tradition of its presence.” One such tradition, if it may be so called, has 
been preserved in a book where one would least expect to find it,—namely, 
in Boswell’s ‘ Life of Johnson,’—-and as Mr. Cordeaux has not referred 
to this notice in his remarks on Lincolnshire Bustards, I will quote the 
passage to which I allude. It occurs in a letter dated 9th January, 1758, 
addressed by Dr. Johnson to his friend Bennet Langton, of Langton, near 
Wragby, and runs as follows :—‘T have left off housekeeping, and therefore 
made presents of the game which you were pleased to send me. The 
Pheasant I gave to Mr. Richardson [the author of ‘ Clarissa’], the Bustard 
to Dr. Lawrence, and the pot I placed with Miss Williams, to be eaten by 
myself.” This “ game,” then, was sent up to London from Langton, and, 
considering what the aspect of that part of Lincolnshire was at the date 
mentioned, the difficulties of communication, and the mode of conveyance 
in those days, it cannot be doubted that this Bustard, like the Pheasant, 
must have been killed in the neighbourhood in which the sender resided. 
Whether it is quite justifiable to identify the bird so called with the Great 
Bustard may be a question, although the probability is that this view is 
correct, since the smaller species has been almost invariably distinguished 
as the Little Bustard, while in contemporary and other notices where 
reference is made to “the Bustard” the context shows, either from the 
description given of plumage, size, or weight, or from some allusion to its 
habits, that the Great Bustard was the bird intended. J learn from 
Mr. Cordeaux that Wragby lies between the oolite and the chalk, on 
both of which ranges the Great Bustard was at one time probably not 
uncommon.—J. E. Harrina. 
Mieration or House Marrins.—My own observations quite coincide 
with those of Mr. Stevenson as to the early migration of the main body of 
House Martins. Although contrary to what might at first be expected, 
their departure does not take place in this county until about the second 
week in September. On reference to my note-books I find that the first, 
and as I think, the main migratory flight departed, in 1875, on September 
