Lost British Birds. 
14 
The fact that it punctually reappeared in many of its haunts 
as early as January each year, shows that it did not go very 
far afield. Stevenson does not concern himself much about 
the bird as an individual—its manners and customs; his 
account is rather like a history of a people, or race, which 
is apt to be a chronology and record of principal events— 
stratagems and spoils, manoeuvres, massacres, pursuit of 
fugitives, etc., etc. His account opens solemnly: “ With 
almost kindred feelings to those with which one con¬ 
templates, in the human race, the extinction of some great 
historic name, the naturalist, at least, regards the extermina¬ 
tion amongst us of this noble indigenous species.” That so 
noble a figure was ever indigenous, a member of an avi-fauna 
now composed of comparatively mean forms, reads almost 
like a tale of fancy. Yet this grand bird was once quite 
common in all open localities suited to its habits throughout 
the country—the moors of Haddingtonshire and Berwick¬ 
shire ; Newmarket and Boyston heaths; the downs of 
Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Hampshire and Sussex. 
In all these localities, Stevenson states, it had ceased to exist 
before the last of the race of British bustards fell victims to 
the advancement of agriculture in its last haunt in 
Norfolk and Suffolk. It was, in other words, deliberately 
extirpated. In Wiltshire it ceased to exist about 1820; in 
Yorkshire about 1825 ; in the open parts of Norfolk and 
Suffolk it lingered on to 1832 and 1833. But for many 
years before that date it had been pursued in that ruth¬ 
less manner, which seems to indicate on the part of the 
persecutors a fixed relentless determination to wipe the 
species out—the spirit of the gamekeeper with regard to 
hawks, owls, the magpie, jay, and other species that still 
exist to give variety and lustre to our wild bird life, and 
redeem it from that oppressive sameness which is fast 
becoming its most prominent characteristic. As long back 
as 1812 one Turner of Wrotham conceived an ingenious 
plan for the quick dispatch of bustards, which won him the 
title of otidicide, and some substantial benefits. 
Of the landowners in the district where the last bustards 
