STATUS OF THE GREAT BUSTARD 173 
ardee ” as if he supposed them to be equally common. 
There is nothing to show that Cranes have ever bred in 
Scotland, but this may be because written records of North 
Britain are so few. 
In Ireland the Crane is supposed to have been formerly 
common, but Mr. Ussher is unable to cite any documents 
to prove it, between the time of Giraldus (supra, p. 46), whose 
testimony is not very conclusive, and 1739.* The country 
is suitable for Cranes, which still visit Ireland from time to 
time as migrants, and no more than that can be said. 
The Status of the Great Bustardt in the British Isles.— 
The early status of the Great Bustard as an inhabitant 
of England is somewhat clouded and, much as we should 
like to fathom the obscurity of the past, it cannot be 
done. In one respect its history differs from that of the 
Crane, for the Crane was known from the earliest times, 
and is often cited by name in historical documents ; but not 
so the Bustard, which had no Saxon appellation and does net 
come into early British history. Some there are who have 
thought, with the late Mr. Howard Saunders, that it inhabited 
all the undulating plains and wolds from the British Channel 
to the Firth of Forth,§ but is there really enough evidence 
to warrant such a conclusion? To begin with, we find an 
echo of its former existence in Yorkshire in the family name 
* Cf. “ Birds of Ireland,’’ p. 246. 
ft Although it does not pertain to the sixteenth century, one is tempted 
to recall a remark of Sir Thomas Browne, made by him about 1662, viz., 
that Cranes were often to be seen in Norfolk in hard winters. What 
Willughby and Ray have to tell on the matter fourteen years later is also 
rather important. In the first or Latin edition of their ‘‘ Ornithologia’’ (1676), 
p- 201), these authors say :— 
“ Sepissime ad nos commeant, suntque in palustribus agri Lincolniensis 
& Cantabrigiensis estivo tempore magni eorum greges.”’ 
But in the English edition, issued two years after the ‘‘ Ornithologia,”’ 
Ray omits the important words “ estivo tempore,’’ and says: ‘‘ whether or 
no thev breed in England I cannot certainiy determine either of my own 
knowledge or from the relation of any credible person.’ 
In the “ Synopsis Methodica Avium,’’ which was published in 1718, 
five vears after Ray’s death, the words ‘‘ hyberno tempore ’’ are substituted 
for ‘‘ estivo tempore.”’ 
Otis tarda, Lin. 
See Yarrell’s ‘‘ British Birds,’’ Vol. III., p. 195. 
t 
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