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On the Great Bustard.



Then they advance, and finally work the birds over the guns as in

partridge-driving.


A male bird shot thus in full flight comes to the ground with

a considerable shock ; for though 27 lbs. is the weight of the heaviest

Great Bustard we have personally seen shot, they are said to reach

as great a weight as 38 lbs. (Newton). In Spain the wild bird does

not live only upon crops and wild herbage but on much animal food

such as lizards, insects and mice.


It is not a little curious that the males should ‘ display ’ long

before the coming of the females, which are said not to arrive before

April. These birds in captivity make four distinct noises, viz., a

rough bark or “ honk ” made habitually when scared, a deep guttural

11 laugh ” when visited in their paddock and not afraid, a deep sound

like a “ stopped ” note on a base viol, made by the male when in full

display, and a kind of whine, only heard, in my experience, when

their feeder leaves their paddock; then they call after him with

this particular cry. They are interesting birds to keep, though

always rather an anxiety because of their liability to panic : yet in

Mr. Walter Buck’s lovely garden at Jerez de la Frontera, where they

are quite at liberty, they are so bold that they dispute possession

of food with two huge mastiffs.


The Great Bustard has a particular interest for us, as once a

British bird—one indeed that just managed to retain its place in

Norfolk up to some 75 years ago, within the possible memory of

many an old man living yet. But in the beginning of the last

century there were groups of these birds, not only in Norfolk, but in

Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Wiltshire, though they seem to

have disappeared by that time from Dorset, Hants and Cambridge¬

shire, where they were formerly known. They frequented large open

spaces—the plains, heaths and wide corn-lands. It would have

been in any case impossible for so shy and so conspicuous a bird to

survive the pressure of the increasing population about its narrowing

borders, but, to begin with, the extension of plantations robbed it

of its sense of security, and then the invention of the corn-drill and

horse-hoe sealed its fate (Stevenson), for the use of these implements

inevitably led to the discovery and destruction of its nests.


*Tke same thing is apparently happening in the case of the Corncrake, owing

to the hay-cutting machines. Ed.



