60 Mr. Christy on Great Bustard and
under the wall of the River Crouch, for the purpose of
shooting wild-fowl. While thus stationed he was surprised
to observe a very large bird fly leisurely over the river and
then over Iris head at but a very little height. His gun
being loaded with No. 2 shot, he fired and brought it
down, although but slightly wounded. At first he had
no idea of the name of the bird, but it turned out to
be a Great Bustard.
For the benefit of those who are not ornithologists I will
here make a few remarks on this interesting species. So
far as our own country is concerned, the Great Bustard is
now almost extinct, the dawn of the present century
having seen very nearly the last of it as a resident in these
Islands. Indeed, one might say that it was even then
quite extinct. Those stray specimens that have been met
with during the last eighty years or so have been birds
driven by accident or stress of weather from the Continent,
where, under more favourable conditions of existence, it is
still no very great rarity. During the last and the preced-
ing centuries it might even have been called a common
bird, especially on the wide open downs in Wiltshire and
Sussex, and various places in Norfolk. In Gilbert White's
time it was probably not a bird of every-day occurrence,
for he says under date 1770 : "There be bustards on the
wide Downs near Brighthelmstone." A quaint and primi-
tive natural history work which I possess* speaks of it
occurring in the places mentioned, and also on Royston
and Newmarket Heaths in Cambridgeshire, but admits
that it was once far more common in England. The book
contains a fairly good figure of the bird. I will quote a
few lines describing the mode of taking them then
employed:—
"Where there are neither woods nor hedges to screen
the sportsman, they enjoy a kind of indolent security. . . .
But though they cannot be reached by a fowling-piece,
they are sometimes run down by. greyhounds. Being
voracious and greedy, they often sacrifice their safety to
* "The Naturalist's Pocket Magazine, or Compleat Cabinet of
Nature." London, 1799 and 1800.