2 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



the game and wild-fowl, as well as fish, which were 

 brought to the markets by those huge carriers' 

 wagons that moved all over England, — or those 

 parts of it where there were roads fit for travelling 

 over, not simply tracks, — horsed with the finest 

 draught animals that could be procured, bred ex- 

 pressly for their purpose, just as others were for the 

 mail and ordinary coaches that have passed away 

 within my own time. 



I have seen deliveries of game and fowl made to 

 the wagons and coaches in those old days. A horse 

 or donkey would bring the consignment from some 

 out-of-the-way place and wait by the side of the 

 main road with it until the coach or wagon came 

 along. No time or words were wasted ; almost as 

 quickly as I could write a few lines about it the 

 coach or wagon was on its way again. Even in 

 " those slow times," as one hears wise and ex- 

 perienced sages of the ripe age of twenty-five of 

 the present day call them, they had a system, and 

 a good honest one. If you expected a thing you 

 generally got it, in good order, at the time you 

 looked for it. The coaches and wagons were timed 

 to arrive at certain places, setting aside accidents 

 or snow-drifts, and as a rule they could be depended 

 upon. 



Thirty miles south from Dorking, and less from 

 that westward, will place us in some of the old 

 haunts of the Bustard, which are visited even at the 

 present time by solitary members of the species. 

 Their old coursing grounds are lonely and beautiful 



