LITTLE BUSTARD. 
1>79 
210. Otis tetrax. Little Bustard. 
A rare accidental visitor from Southern Europe. 
A female, now in the Earl of Malmesbury's collection 
at Heron Court, was shot by Lord Palmerston at Broad- 
lands in September, 1810: — "It was in a turnip-field; 
it rose and pitched again, flying heavily, and had a strong 
and most remarkably unpleasant smell when killed."' 
A female was shot on January 4th, 1873, in a turnip-field 
on Mr. Twitchin's farm, near Whitchurch, and afterwards 
presented to the British Museum.^ 
A very fine female was shot on January 2nd, 1875, 
near Arreton, in the Isle of Wight, by the Rev. H. M. 
Langdale and Mr. H. Jacob : — " They first flushed it in a 
turnip-field, and followed it from field to field, firing one or 
two long shots at it, till they lost sight of it. After a time 
they came across it again, squatting close to the ground in 
a bare stubble field, when it rose within easy range of one 
of the guns, and was brought down." It is now in the 
collection of Mr. Langdale, the gentleman who shot it.^ 
Five other specimens were procured in England during 
the same winter. Another was shot on January 9th, 1879, 
near Portsmouth Harbour, between Fareham and Gosport, 
by Mr. M. Dexter, who reported the occurrence in the 
" Field " on the 25th of the same month. 
In 1897 Mr. Metcalfe, of Roche Court, Salisbury, flushed 
a bird, which the Rev. A. Morres thinks must certainly 
have been a little bustard, out of the turnips in a field 
about two miles south of Grateley Station ; it passed 
so close that there was no difl^culty in seeing its colour and 
markings distinctly. 
^ Lord Malmesbury's MSS. Notes. = H. Reeks, in the ''Zoologist." 1S73. 
3 Cowper, in Hants Court Guide." 
