OF SELBOBNE, 
143 
sion Island, and many other desolate places, mariners have 
found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that they 
would stand still to be taken ; as is the case with boobies, 
&c. As an example of what is advanced, I remark that the 
golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird) will stand 
unconcerned till you come within three or four yards of it, 
while the bustard {Otis) , the largest British land fowl, does 
not care to admit a person within so many furlongs/ 
^ " Besides the barren ' brecks ' of Norfolk and Suffolk, the great 
bustard, on good authority, appears in former times to have been ex- 
tremely common on all the open parts of this island which were suited 
to its habits — the elevated moors of Haddingtonshire and Berwickshire, 
the desolate wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Newmarket and 
Royston Heaths on the borders of Cambridgeshire, together with the 
downs of Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Southampton, and ^ Sussex 
