no 57. Qiiintin : Some Avicnltnral Notes. 



I will deal with the Bustards first, for it is a family in which 

 I have long taken great interest. I have kept Great Bustards 

 for some twenty-three years, and during that time I have never 

 been without specimens. 



My first Great Bustard came to me from a respectable 

 London dealer, who was as ignorant as I was then of the extreme 

 care required in packing these birds. There were no signs that 

 the hamper had met with ill usage on the way, but the poor 

 thing reached m.e with one wing, and both thighs broken, and 

 I learnt then how fragile are the bones of these heavy and 

 excitable birds. This was a very bad start, but the late 

 Lord Lilford most kindly set me up with several others ; and 

 what was of still more value, he taught me how to keep them. 

 They must have shelter from wind and wet, and above all 

 things, they must be kept out of danger of sudden frights. 

 The Great Bustard, however thoroughly tamed, if suddenly 

 scared, is as likely to injure himself as one of the larger antelopes 

 or deer, in captivity, and one can not say more than that ! I 

 can myself speak to several disastrous instances of damage 

 and even death resulting from sudden frights. A friend of mine 

 lost a female bird which was peaceful!}^ feeding on the lawn, 

 but which dashed itself against the house when startled by the 

 sudden apparition of a gipsy coming round the corner. A 

 male, which I had kept for thirteen years at Scampston, was 

 frightened by a gardener, whom he did not know, coming up 

 with a broom on his shoulder, and in his alarm fractured a wing 

 bone close up to the body, opening an artery at the same time, 

 and bleeding to death in a few minutes. A specimen of the 

 great Australian Bustard, which had just been let into his 

 paddock for the summer, after being confined in an aviary 

 all the winter, leaped into the air in play, as these birds do, 

 and coming down heavily, broke both his thigh bones, and 

 had to be destroyed. This was in the London Zoological 

 Gardens. 



In 1897 with a friend, I imported several Great Bustards 

 from the South of Spain, one of which, a female, still survives. 

 Another of this batch distinguished herself by hatching the 

 first young Bustard ever hatched b^^ a tame bird in this country, 

 so far as records go. 



And here I ma}^ say that the male Great Bustards are not 

 fully adult, with, in the breeding season, their chesnut pectoral 

 bands ; and their pouches are not fully inflatable, till they are 



Naturalistr 



