112 
MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN SCALES. 
APPENDIX C. 
Extracts from Letters from JOHN SCALES to the writer 
OF THIS Memoir.* 
Skibbereen, Dec. 15. 1855 
. . . I will endeavour to answer all the enquiries in your note as far as 
I can. I must first state that my father occupied the warren at Beacham- 
well at the time the old male Bustard came into my possession which was 
found in a sitting posture by the warreners, who were attracted to the spot 
b}' some Crows. They had picked out the eye which lay uppermost on the 
ground. It appeared to have been dead two or three daj^s at least. Having 
been shot in the lower part of the body, the skin became putrid, and in skin- 
ning it I had to remove a large piece. This, together with the eye being so 
much injured, compelled me to set it up in the attitude you may have seen 
in the Norwich Museum. 
The reason why I believed it to have been shot by a Mr. 11. Sanders was 
that when I subsequently became acquainted with his father, the late 
Mr. Sanders of Stoke Perry, I accidental!}'’ heard that his son Robert, then 
a youth from school, when on a visitf at Narborough, had shot at and 
wounded a very large bird, which his friends told him was a Bustard, and 
as it was stated that it flew towards Marham Smee (a tract of land of 
considerable extent between our warren and the great coursing field at 
Narborough, and when in crop of turnips a favourite resort of the birds) I 
came to the conclusion that it must have been shot by him, and the bird 
alluded to when found on our warren. The youth being on a visit about 
harvest-time would seem to confirm it, as, to the best of my recollection, 
that was about the time it was found, and its becoming putrid so soon, tends 
to confirm it ; but as it was only stated by a mere youth and thirty years 
ago, I am afraid you could not place sufficient dependence upon the informa- 
tion . . . for, after all, it might not have been a Bustard ; although I 
have always thought that my bird was the one he shot at ; but I fear it is 
* It will be seen that the letters from which these extracts are taken 
were written currente calamo, and possibly without revision ; but, except to 
make a few obvious corrections, I have thought it best not to attempt to 
recast the sentences, but leave them in their original roughness. I may also 
add that, fully recognizing the authority with which Mr. Scales was entitled 
to speak in regard to the Bustard as a Norfolk bird, I am inclined to think 
that on some points he was, perhaps through the lapse of memory, after so 
many years, not altogether correct, though his views seem in every way 
worthy to be placed on record. — A. N. 
t “ To Mr. Long ” — Scales to Salmon ut infra. — A.N. 
