308 
DISAPPEARANCE OF 
THE GREAT BUSTARD IN LINCOLNSHIRE. 
JOHN CORDEAUX, M.B.0O.U., 
Eaton Hall, Retford. 
THE very last appearance of this noble bird in Lincolnshire 1s 
unrecorded ; it probably took place in the early years of the present 
century. The Rev. Edward Elmhirst in a letter, dated Nov. zgth, 
1886, told me that he quite well recollected his father shooting 
Bustards and Ruffs and Reeves, on Thoresby Common, and his 
sending the former to Sir Joseph Banks, then living, about sixty-eight 
years ago. This would bring it down to 1818. Sir Joseph Banks 
_ died in 1820. At the commencement of this century the Lincoln- 
_ shire wolds had already been partly enclosed and cultivated, turnips 
being regularly grown in rotation. In the Middle Marsh (in which 
Thoresby is situated), and the coast marshes, the general enclosure 
of commons and open lands, and the consequent change of cultiva- — 
tion, took place many years later. These low-country commons were 
of great extent, and the chief crops were wheat and beans, very little 
else of any sort being grown. The beans were sown in the spring __ 
on winter ploughing, broadcast, and never weeded. [It is difficultin 
days of progressive farming and variety of cropping to realise the 
slovenly cultivation of these old times, and the breadth given up to — 
bean growing ; those who take an interest in the subject should read 
the ‘Agricultural Survey of Lincolnshire,’ published in 1799,as made 
by the celebrated Arthur Young, F.R.S., and secretary to the Board 
of Agriculture of the time. The large amount of shelter and privacy __ 
afforded by these wide areas of unweeded beans would be highly __ 
favourable to the protection of the few remaining Bustards still 
lingering on the coast and middle marshes of Lincolnshire, after 
they had disappeared from the wolds. ‘The Naturalist’ is now so 
books that they will be doing good service by extracting and 
publishing any small fonts Peek i. or — have 
-_-teference to - former ex 
. —, 
