174 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
of Bustard, and that so long ago as 1391.* Perhaps this 
does not go for a great deal, but it is not improbable 
that the name came from the bird, but, even if it did, this 
neither proves nor disproves its abundance. Again, we have 
Sir William Dugdale giving Busterdesdole (i.e., Bustard’s 
boundary) and Bustard’s lode (¢.e., watercourse), in his 
‘ History of Imbanking,” as ancient names near King’s Lynn 
in Norfolk.t 
The Bustard is one of the thirty birds enumerated in 
1413 in the ‘‘ Boke of Keruynge,”’ and it is named among the 
cooking recipes in John Russell’s rhyming “ Boke of Nurture ” 
(circa 1450) :— 
“ Pecok, Stork, Bustarde and Shovellewre, 
Ye must unlace them in the plite 'manner] of the crane 
prest and pure... ” 
These allusions, which may be taken as applying to the 
British bird, show that it was appreciated for eating in spite of 
its somewhat rank smell, which gave it a bad name with some. 
We have already enumerated the partially unpublished records 
of Bustards in the le Straunge Accounts, one of them being 
as early as 1520, and on that head no more need be said, 
although they are of great value, going back, as they do, 
nearly four hundred years.t  Tantalising in his brevity, 
Dr. Kay does not allude to the Bustard at all, and William 
Harrison merely sets down its name without remark, while 
we may conclude that Turner had not personally met with 
it in England, although possibly he had seen it in Germany. 
Turner calls it a Bustard or Bistard,§ the latter spelling, which 
is obsolete, being the same used by Christopher Merrett.|| 
It can hardly be said that before 1555 the Great Bustard 
had its place as a British species recognised. About that 
time appeared Conrad Gesner’s well-prepared folios, from 
which the study of ornithology received a great impulse, 
* See “‘ Testamenta Eboracensis,”’ Part T., p. 153. Also in Fines Roll, 
16 Edward TI. (1323). 
7 Pp. 244, 286. 
t As pointed out by Dr. Ticehurst (p. 130), there is a record for Kent 
of a Bustard in 1480. 
§ Evans’s edn., p. 167 
|| A century later. Sce “ Pinax,” p. 173. 
