MISCKLLANEOUS NOTES ANU OESEHVATIONS. 
51 ‘J 
to record a somewhat similar instance which occurred some years 
ago at Ixworth in Sufl'olk. 
A lady friend who is now residing on Unthank’s Road, but has 
been, when resident in the country, a most successful rearer of 
young birds which, from the best of motives, have come under her 
fostering care, — to save them from cats, in exposed places, or 
bird-nesting boys, — tells me that, near where she then resided. 
House Martins built under the roof of a water-mill. A carpenter 
employed on the premises, one Moiulaij morning, pulled doAvn 
a nest with young ones, four or five, and these nestlings he carried 
home at dinner-time, for his children to play with. Mrs. Ray 
happened to call at the cottage late on the following Thursdaij 
afternoon, and saw the birds, which, she was informed, had had 
nothing to eat all that time, but the children had played with 
them, and put them in a little basket at night. 
She took them all home with her, and fed them on finely- 
shredded meat and scalded bread. They were dull and languid at 
first, but soon revived, and became, as she expresses it, most 
engaging pets, “ bright, cheery, and chatty.” They were some 
time before they left the nest she provided for them, but they all 
lived, and eventually took flight, and, most probably, as she 
supposes, rejoined their parents at the mill, about half a mile 
away. Mrs. Ray had frei^uently told this story to her friends, 
who, to her mortification, were usually sceptical as to the facts ; but 
I had the pleasure of showing her the account of Mr. Kitton’s 
House Martins, in our Transactions, which goes far to corroborate 
her story. — H. Stevenson. 
Great Rustard. I have lately come into possession of a 
Bustard {Otis tarda) and from what I can gather of its history’, 
I am inclined to believe that it is a Xorfolk bird of the aboriginal 
race. I am indebted to Mr. ^Villiam Wiley, of Peterstone, Holkham, 
for the specimen, and the following is what I can gather with reganl 
to it. IMore than twenty years ago, the wife of a James Pegg gave 
this bustard (uncased) to ilr. Wiley’s children as a plaything. 
James Pegg Avas at that time working at the Peterstone brick- 
fields (the property of the Earl of Leicester), and Mr. Wiley was 
then, as now, overseer of those works. !Mr. Wiley assures me that 
the Bustard did not originally belong to James Pegg, nor to his 
