LIST OF NORFOLK BIRDS. 
399 
ir>4. (,’rane {Grus communis). 
The following is believed to be a complete list of the modern 
occurrences in Norfolk of this accidental visitant, which it is likely 
enough bred in this county in olden days: — beltw'ell, August 183G ; 
Martham, February 1850 ; Warham, spring I860 ; (?) Somerton 
and Thornham, May 1869 ; Pickenham, June 1869 ; Wretham, 
September 1873. Mr. Stevenson has collected such ancient 
references to this bird as refer to Norfolk, and the subject has been 
further pursued by Mr. J. E. Harting in the ‘Field ’ for December 
23rd, 1882. 
155. Gre.vt Pust.vrd {^Otis tarda). 
Norfolk, as the county in which the native race survived longest, 
Avill always be associated with the memory of this magnificent 
bird ; but it must be understood that it was only in what 
Sir Thomas Browne called the “ champian and feildy part ” — that 
is to say, the open country from Thetford to beyond SwaiOiam, 
between the low lands on the west, and the enclosed or wooded 
portions of the middle of the county — that the Bustard found a 
suitable home. Here it was “not unfrequent” in his time, and 
existed in numbers perhaps not much reduced until about the 
beginning of this century ; but soon after there began a rapid 
decrease from causes set forth at length in Mr. Stevenson’s 
‘ Birds of Norfolk,’ to Avhich we refer our readers, and here need 
only repeat that 1838 was the last year in which examples of the 
old race are known to have survived. Of this race our ^Museum 
fortunately possesses four specimens, three killed in Norfolk and 
one in Suffolk.* 
Since the extirpation of its ancient breed, England is from time 
to time visited by stragglers of this species from the continent, and 
the last Norfolk occurrence was in January and February, 1876, 
when a male bird frequented some fen-laud chiefly in the parish of 
Hockwold, below Brandon, for about a month, and finally departed 
unharmed, thanks to the exertions of Mr. H. i\I. Upcher and some 
* The first mention of the Bustard as a Norfolk binl with which we are 
ac<iuaiiited is (luoted by Mrs. Herbert Jones (‘ Saudriughara Past and 
Present,’ ]>. 23) from the ‘Chamberlain’s accounts’ preserved among the 
Coq>onition Kecords of King’s Lynn, by which it appears that in the 
4-tth of Edwanl III. (1371) 39s. 8d. wius paid “ for "Wine, Bustards, Herons, 
and Oats, presented to John Nevile, Admiral.” 
VOL. iv. 
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