200 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



numerous on a part of the Downs between the Dyke and 

 a place known as Thunder's Barrow^ from certain ancient 

 tumuli supposed to be British. My father^ also^ while riding 

 on thcDownSj about a mile from Patcham^ fell in with nine 

 of these birds feeding in a turnip-field ; this was about the 

 year 1810. I have heard them spoken of by some of the old 

 South-down shepherds as having been often seen by them. 

 Of course the birds then bred there. 



Markwick (Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. iv. p. 7) merely re- 

 marks, " Common Bustard sometimes seen on our South 

 Downs." Mr. Knox, in his O. R. (p. 223), says :— " The latest 

 instance of the Great Bustard having been observed in Sussex 

 appears to have been that of a single example which was 

 occasionally seen about twenty-four years ago near Blatching- 

 ton by Mr. Catt, who then occupied that farm. It used to 

 frequent the flat table-land which runs for a Gonsiderable dis- 

 tance in the direction of the Dyke. I have met with some 

 very old people who in their younger days have seen flocks of 

 these noble birds on the Downs.'' In Yarrell's ' British Birds ' 

 (vol. iii. p. 207) we find that on the 14th of January, 1876, a 

 female was shot on the Downs near Eastbourne, and came into 

 the possession of Mr. Monk, of Lewes ; of course the bird 

 was a straggler from the Continent. The food of Bustards 

 is grass, young com, turnip leaves, trefoil, and other vege- 

 tables, and they also kill and eat small mammals and reptiles, 

 as well as, according to Pennant, those large earthworms 

 which appear in great quantities on the Downs before sun- 

 rising in the summer. In that season they conceal them- 

 selves in the standing corn, or in high turnips. They deposit 

 their eggs in a hole scratched in the ground. Mr. Rowley, in 

 his Orn. Misc. (vol. i. p. 103), quotes the following from 

 ' Musseum Tradescantianum,' published in 1656, p. 4 : " The 

 Bustard, as big as a Turkey, usually taken by greyhounds on 

 Newmarket Heath." 



