Some Great Bustards.



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young Willow Wrens in its mouth, and the gardener, attracted

by the demonstration of the old birds, rescued it only just

in time. The snake retreated through the bracken into a

mole’s run in the bank. I always thought that sooner or later

the Bustards would kill that snake, but they never did. They

* caught many moths, and were always picking up out of the grass

some infinitesimal objects which one would not have supposed

it worth their while to trouble about. They always refused dor

beetles.


So we nursed the male Bustard into something like better

health, but he was always light, flat-chested, and a poor thing at

the best. Then his heart began to go wrong, and he would sit

I down with palpitations. At a distance of three paces or more yon

could hear his heart knocking like taps on a kettledrum. Then

he took to falling over from seizures of the heart, which naturally

frightened him very much. We righted him several times and

he rallied more or less, but one morning he was dead in their

house.


To return to the hens. When they first came they were

exceedingly shy and never ventured out into the open, but hid in

the artichokes. One could always find them there, squatting close

to the ground, their necks stretched out in front in the manner

of the Thick-knee. When roused they would walk or run along

close against the wire netting. At first the only way they could

be got to feed was by rousing them gently and then throwing

pellets of food into the run in front of them. By the end of

about ten days or a fortnight they were taking food well from the

hand but even then, feeding over, they would again move away

and hide. But that gradually wore off, and from extreme

shyness they passed to great boldness, mixed, for 110 evident

reason, with sudden fits of panic. When being fed they would

suddenly utter their grunting bark of alarm and move away.


I had not pinioned them but had cut all the primaries

excepting two from one wing of either bird ; but the Great Bustard

is remarkably powerful in its wings and this proved to be in¬

sufficient, as shall be told.


They were constantly practising flight, running like

Ostriches with outspread wings. One day in a higher wind



