Birds. 5063 



was so misguided as to cross the border to die in another county ; but Wiltshire was 

 always a great stronghold of these noble birds, and the subject of these remarks 

 doubtless came to visit the retreats of his forefathers, though I must acknowledge the 

 reception he met with was neither friendly nor encouraging. Again, from the above 

 premises, — the dragging of the fluttering bird along the ground for a quarter of a 

 mile, in the first week in January, when fallows and arable lands of all kinds are pro- 

 verbially wet and muddy, and the declaration of the boy that until so dragged its 

 plumage was quite clean, — have we not a very obvious cause of its injured feathers, a 

 very plain straightforward conclusion, and an ample answer to those who judge of its 

 previous confinement from the draggled appearance of the wings and tail? and this in 

 addition to the great improbability (if it had escaped from confinement) that so valu- 

 able a bird should neither have been claimed, identified, nor even mentioned by its 

 previous owner ; while the fact of its occurrence has been widely and generally made 

 known by the ' Zoologist,' the ' Times,' and the ' Illustrated London News,' in addi- 

 tion to several provincial papers. The bird is now immortalized by Mr. Leadbeater, 

 and in the possession of Mr. Rowland, but it was within an ace of being lost to Or- 

 nithology for ever, as at the barn, the scene of its barbarous murder, a council of war 

 was held over it by all the labourers, who were at that hour assembled at dinner, and 

 it was very nearly decided to pick and dress it then and there; but the little boy's 

 brother claimed it for him, and so it was put on his back, and its head was held in his 

 hand, and so he trudged home with his prize to his mother ; and no wonder that the 

 urchin said " it was main heavy, and he couldn't scarce get along with him,'' for 

 though described to be in poor condition it weighed 13^ fbs., and measured 6 feet 

 3 inches from tip to tip of the wings. Mr. Rowland further remarks, and very justly, 

 that the only way to account for so small a boy so easily capturing a bird as large as 

 himself is that when he caught hold of the left wing the bird became powerless, in 

 consequence of the leg on that side being broken, and that when once on its side it 

 could not recover itself to offer resistance. But one more fact have I to offer, and 

 that is the name of the farm which was the scene of the death of the last of the bus- 

 tards; and that, harmonizing well with the emaciated condition of the bird, rejoices 

 in the euphonious title of " Starve-all." — Alfred Charles Smith ; Yatesbury Rectory, 

 Calne, March 6, 1856. 



Occurrence of the Great Bustard (Otis tarda) in Cambridgeshire. — About Christmas, 

 during the last winter, a pair of the great bustards were seen by the fen-men 

 in Wicken and Burwell fens : very soon after Christmas they were shot at, and one was 

 supposed to be wounded ; any how after this, only one bird was seen. This bird was 

 noticed by all the people living near or on the fen with whom I have spoken, but 

 partly from the little intercourse between Wicken and Cambridge, and partly, perhaps, 

 from a desire to prevent others from sharing the chance of securing so rare a prize (for 

 the bird has not been seen for more tban twenty years in those parts), the news did 

 not reach the collectors in Cambridge until the 1st of March. Several went down 

 immediately, but all of us were equally unsuccessful, as the last time it was seen was 

 on Sunday, March 2nd, when some of the fen-men shot at it, but being too far to 

 have a chance of killing it, they only frightened the bird off, and at present no further 

 tidings of it have been heard. In a piece of cole-seed, which it often was seen to fre- 

 quent, were found marks of the scratching of a large bird and several feathers, some 

 from the wing, others being the short feathers of the back: from the brightness of the 

 markings of these feathers, the bird must have been a very finely marked specimen. 

 There is such difficulty in extracting true information from the fen-men, that I could 



