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neighbourhood of Thetford, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk. Of this 'hearsay' evidence 

 I consider myself most fortunate in being enabled to give a summary, since, having been carefully 

 written down at the time, after conversations held with many of the oldest men, and those most 

 conversant with the now exterminated birds, on the Elvedon and adjoining estates, it contains 

 many interesting facts, which in a few years might have been lost altogether, or, at best, would 

 have survived only in the vague and unsatisfactory form of local traditions. 



" During the last hundred years the story of the Bustard in Norfolk and the adjoining parts 

 of Suffolk — for it would be inexpedient here to be restricted by merely civil limits — seems to be 

 this. The open country round Swaffham, and that near Thetford, formed each the headquarters 

 of a ' drove ;' for so an assemblage of these birds was locally called. The Swaffham tract, a long 

 narrow range, chiefly lying in the 'breck' district, bounded on the east by the enclosed part of 

 the county, and on the west by the fens, extended probably from Heacham in the north, to 

 Cranwich in the south, if indeed it did not reach by way of Mundford and Weeting across the 

 bordei's of the county to the Wangford and Lakenheath uplands, which are strictly part of the 

 Thetford or Stow tract, to be presently considered. In this Swaffham tract the drove formerly 

 consisted of, at least, twenty-seven birds, as the Rev. Henry Dugmore, of Beachamwell, informs 

 me that he perfectly remembers (although he cannot recall the exact date) riding on one occasion 

 at Westacre in company with the late Rev. Robert Hamond, and, when walking their horses 

 across the open country, the whole drove of twenty-seven Bustards flew by them within fifty 

 or sixty yards. Mr. Scales also, in the same locality, once saw twenty-three together; and 

 Mr. Hamond, of High House, Westacre, can recollect this drove as numbering twenty-two birds. 

 There can be little doubt, therefore, if earlier information were available, it would be found that 

 in strength this drove was by no means inferior to that which at the same time frequented the 

 other tract. Again, from twenty-three, or twenty-two, this drove subsequently decreased to 

 seventeen or sixteen, then to eleven, at which number Mr. Hamond remembers it long stood, and 

 finally dwindled to five, and two, all accounts agreeing in this, that the last remaining birds were 

 hens only. The cause of this diminution has already been briefly stated in the ' Introduction ' to 

 this work (vol. i. pp. li, lii). 



"It may, however, be convenient to repeat here that the hen Bustard nearly always laid her 

 eggs in the winter-sown corn, which in former days was, almost without exception, rye, sown 

 broadcast after the old fashion. As the mode of tillage improved, wheat was gradually sub- 

 stituted for rye ; and, at the price that grain fetched in those days, the desire of not using more 

 seed than was absolutely necessary brought about the invention of the drill, by means of which 

 corn, thus sown, was capable of being kept free from weeds with much greater facility. First, 

 parties of children were sent into the fields to perform this operation, and then speedier, if not 

 more thorough, execution was obtained by the use of the horse-hoe. Thus every nest made by a 

 Bustard in a wheatfield was sure to be discovered — perhaps in time to avert instantaneous 

 destruction from the horses' feet or the hoe-blades, perhaps (and this probably much the more 

 often) only when the eggs had been driven over and smashed and their contents were pouring 

 out on the ground. But even in the first case, instantaneous destruction being avoided, the eggs 

 were generally taken up by the driver of the hoe (in defiance of the act of 25th Henry VIII., 

 which, though often enforced when smaller and less valuable species were concerned, seems in. 



