320 
MR. W G. CLARKE ON VERTEBRATE ANIMALS 
143. * Common Coot ( Fulica afra). C. Common on the 
rivers ancl meres of the district, Fowlmere especially having great 
attractions for this species. On January 19th, 1893, forty were 
in sight on the Little Ouse at one time, near the Two-mile bottom. 
144. Crane ( Grus communis). A. “One shot at Wretham, 
September 1st, 1873. Male, immature; weighed 10 lbs. 13 ozs.” 
(Trans.) 
145. Great Bustard ( Otis tarcla). E. “Sir John Shelley, 
a veteran sportsman, says that forty years ago ( i.e ., 1805), parties 
used to he made to go and look at the Bustards by those who 
visited the Duke of Grafton and other great houses in the 
neighbourhood, and that a distant view of some of these birds 
could always be obtained” (Lubbock’s Fauna). “In 1832, there 
is reason to believe that a nest found on the borders of Thetford 
Warren, was the last known in Suffolk. Probably the last Bustard 
in Norfolk was at Bridgham in 1842. There were two great 
‘droves’ in Norfolk — Thetford and Swaffham. Thetford ‘drove’ 
extended from Brettenham and Snarehill, to Barnham, North Stow, 
and Icklingham. Bustards were probably as numerous here as 
anywhere in England. Mr F. J. Nash, of Bishop’s Stortford, 
remembers when a young man seeing nine flights of Bustards in 
one day near Thetford. Two were caught on the Place Farm, 
Thetford, in 1820” (abridged from B. of N.) “A migrant was 
seen on Blackdyke Fen, Ilockwold, on January 24th, 1877. It 
was seen at Elveden on February 25th, but not again” (Trans.) 
146. Little Bustard ( Otis tetrax). A. “One caught in 
a rabbit- trap on Thetford Warren about Christmas, 1861 ” 
(B. of N.) 
147. * Stone Curlew ( (Edicnemus scolopax). “Cullew, 
Sandpiper, and Willie Reeve.” C. “ First made known in 
a graphic form to British ornithologists by Sir Thomas Browne, 
who, about the year 1674, forwarded a drawing of it to the 
celebrated John Ray, taken from a specimen killed near Thetford. 
He also says ‘ it breeds about Thetford, above the stones and 
shingles of the river.’ A footnote in Ray’s book upon Sir Thomas 
Browne’s picture, read : ‘ A Stone Curlew from about Thetford, 
whereabouts they breed. It hath a remarkable eye, and noto 
somewhat like a Green Plover’” (B. of N.) In Martin’s 
