STATUS OF THE GREAT BUSTARD 175 ° 
and in the third book of the ‘“ Historia Animalium ”—qui 
est de Auium natura—the Bustard is described twice over. 
First in the character of a Scotch bird (p. 159), but Gesner’s 
discrimination was too acute not to realise that the bird 
known to Hector Boece as “a Gustard”’ was the same as 
the “ Trapp” of the Germans. Of this he gives a very good 
feure (of a female, p. 468), accompanied by a rather lengthy 
description, in the course of which, referring to England, 
Gesner observes :—‘ Trappos permultos in Anglia esse audio, 
& locis gaudere aquosis [errore]. Sylvaticus tardam avem 
in aqua degere scribit. In segetibus [corn-fields] spe 
inveniuntur ...... ” (p. 470). 
The statement here quoted, that there were very many 
Bustards— Trappos permultos ’’—in England, is somewhat 
remarkable. Mr. W. H. Mullens has pointed out that the 
same is repeated by Aldrovandus in his Liber XII., but it must 
be remembered that the “ Historia Naturalium”’ is little 
more than a compilation. Mr. Mullens thinks it hardly 
likely that this information was communicated by William 
Turner, although Turner is the only Englishman known 
to have been in regular correspondence with Gesner. 
Aldrovandus’s words translated are: “I hear that there 
is an abundance of Bustards [copiam Otidum] in England 
from those who have travelled through that island.” 
This is not exactly what Gesner says, yet it is probably 
borrowed from him. Gesner goes on to say, on the authority 
of one Sylvaticus, that Bustards were taken with dogs and 
falcons, and that their feathers were in request with fishermen 
for dressing flies. In Sylvaticus, Mr. Mullens recognises 
Mattheus Silvaticus of Salerno in Italy,* so we may presume 
that this latter passage is not to apply to British Bustards. 
Dr. Thomas Muffett, whose ‘“ Health’s Improvement ” 
is supposed to have been written in 1595, gives, under the 
heading of Tarde, quite a long space to the merits of the 
‘“ Bistards or Bustards.’’> 
“In the summer towards the ripening of the corn,” he 
says, possibly referring to Salisbury Plain at the time when 
he lived at Wilton in Wiltshire, ‘I have seen half a dozen 
* The author of a medical work in 1474. 
{7 Edition 1655, p. 91. 
