HISTORY OF BRITISH BIRDS. 
GREAT BUSTARD. 
Otis tarda , 
Pennant. Montagu. 
Otis— A Bustard. Tarda —Slow—lazy. 
The Bustard is frequent in Asia in Tartary and Syria; and 
in Europe in Russia, as also in Germany, Italy, Spain, Dalmatia, 
and France; rare in Holland and Sweden. 
This was formerly an actual British bird, though living now 
only among us in the pages of history. In the catalogue of 
the collection made by Tradescant, the basis of the present 
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, it is spoken of as being taken 
with greyhounds on Newmarket Heath, but it seems from what 
is presently to be stated that this could not well have been 
the case. The Rev. Leonard Jenyns, in his Observations on 
the Ornithology of Cambridgeshire,’ published in 1821, says 
that till within a few years single individuals had been seen 
about there, but that they were then supposed to be almost 
extinct; one, however, a young male, was shot on Shelford 
Common in January, 1830, and another at Caxton, in December, 
1832. Ray and Wi Hugh by also mention Royston Heath as 
a place frequented in their time by this species. Salisbury 
Plain, Wiltshire, was another noted locality for it; one was 
shot there on the 29th. of September, 1800, and there were 
two others in company with it. In the summer of 1801 two 
were seen there, and they are reported to have attacked mounted 
horsemen; one of them was captured; another, a female, occurred 
there to C-. R. Waterhouse, Esq., on the 9th. of August, 1849. 
It was also known in Hampshire, and Gilbert White mentions 
his having been informed of eighteen once seen together near 
VOL. v. B 
