ned their existence, though no cock-bird had
latterly been known to bear them company. In Suffolk, where the
neighbourhood of Icklingham formed its chief haunt, an [v.04 p.0876] end
came to the race in 1832; on the wolds of Yorkshire about 1826, or perhaps
a little later; and on those of Lincolnshire about the same time. Of
Wiltshire, George Montagu, author of an _Ornithological Dictionary_,
writing in 1813, says that none had been seen in their favourite haunts on
Salisbury Plain for the last two or three years. In Dorsetshire there is no
evidence of an indigenous example having occurred since that date, nor in
Hampshire nor Sussex since the opening of the 19th century. From other
English counties, as Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Berkshire, it
disappeared without note being taken of the event, and the direct cause or
causes of its extermination can only be inferred from what, on testimony
cited by Henry Stevenson (_Birds of Norfolk_, ii. pp. 1-42), is known to
have led to the same result in Norfolk and Suffolk. In the latter the
extension of plantations rendered the country unfitted for a bird whose shy
nature could not brook the growth of covert that might shelter a foe, and
in the former the introduction of improved agricultural implements, notably
the corn-drill and the horse-hoe, led to the discovery and generally the
destruction of every nest, for the bird's chosen breeding-place was in wide
fields--"brecks," as they are locally called--of winter-corn. Since the
extirpation of the native race the bustard is known to Great Britain only
by occasional wanderers, straying most likely from the open country of
Champagne or Saxony, and occurring in one part or another of the United
Kingdom some two or three times every three or four years, and chiefly in
midwinter.

An adult male will measure nearly 4 ft. from the tip of the bill to the end
of the tail, and its wings have an expanse of 8 ft. or more,--its weight
varying (possibly through age) from 22 to 32 lb. This last was that of one
which was recorded by the younger Naumann, the best biographer of the bird
(_Voegel Deutschlands_, vii. p. 12), who, however, stated in 1834 that he
was assured of the former existence of examples which had attained the
weight of 35 or 38 lb. The female is considerably smaller. Compared with
most other birds frequenting open places, the bustard has
disproportionately short legs, yet the bulk of its body renders it a
conspicuous and sta