 Pref. Note to Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Patterson. So many books dealing with natural history subjects have of late years been written that a preface has become as necessary as an apology for adding to the number as for briefly setting forth the subject matter of a book. While claiming the forbearance of the reader, I would like to state that the following notes and observations are taken from the many entries made in my notebooks during a period of a quarter of a century and relate to the fauna of the neighbourhood of Great Yarmouth. It is possible that some of the entries may prove interesting as recording certain traits and habits of the birds and animals of that locality previously unnoticed by naturalists. There may be some originality worthy of notice, and some value may attach to these notes and observations owing to their dealing with a period during which great changes have taken place in the habitat of the local fauna. They photograph and preserve, as it were, much that future naturalists may not even hope to meet with. The notes are arranged not so much systematically as chronologically. I have begun with almost my first entry in 1878, since which time I have made it the concluding task of each day to jot down anything worth noting that has occurred. It may not be superfluous to add that so far as love of the observation of natural phenomena is concerned, it must have been born with me. My earliest remembered toddles were in pursuit of the crawling, fluttering, flying things around me. Somewhat unfortunately my hours of leisure and recreation were, until very recently, exceedingly scanty, and my rambles had perforce to be taken either before seven in the morning or after that hour in the evening. It will be noticed that in the notes, dates have been freely given. This will be useful, perhaps, to other naturalists besides adding value to the separate records. It may be not out of place to add that, since 1891, I have entirely discarded the gun as a help to observation, and have derived comparably more real pleasure and interest in the pursuit of wildlife with the field glass than I ever did with a fouling piece. I only regret that so many incidents mentioned herein should relate to slaughter and sport. Arthur Henry Paterson, July 1904 End of Preparatory Note Section 1 of Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Paterson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Bird Notes, Part 1 Swallows Nesting Sites The swallow is extremely capricious in its choice of locations for the building of its nest. The chief object of its solicitude, apparently being immunity from the inclemency of the weather rather than suitability or comfort of the situation. In the summer of 1878, a pair built their nest in the hold of the old ship Agnes, a brigantine of the days of Nelson, that had been scuttled and sunk at the entrance of a creek or drain on Braden in order to divert the current. Several feet of water were in the hold of the vessel, no great space intervening between the surface of the water and the deck. The little mud cradle, suspended on a beam, was half-circular in shape. The parent birds had access through the open hatchway and were delighted eventually to see their progeny all safely started in life. Notwithstanding the fact that at high water their tiny domicile was suspended in the centre of 2,000 acres of not always placid salt water. For some years there has been noticed here, as in many other localities, a steady falling off in the numbers of swallows frequenting the town. Certain old chimneys, peopled by successive generations, even having been deserted. A pair built in a shaft erected immediately over a main sewer for the purposes of ventilation, probably the most offensive spot on earth they could have discovered. They frequented it for some years. Those quaint old windmills, which affects so much of the drainage of the marshes and adjacent lowlands, and which gives such a picturesque appearance to the flat landscape, are favourite quarters of this species, whose nests are found inside them in the most curious of situations. The birds in most cases enter and leave the mill through broken window panes or a decayed and crumbled corner of a door or shutter, sometimes through some niche above a misfitting door or shutter. I have overhauled several mills and been astonished at the spots chosen by the erratic birds. Into a beam a marshman had driven a large nail to serve, probably as a clothes peg. To this beam was attached a half circular nest, the bottom of it resting on the spike, which still protruded a couple of inches beyond it. This portion served as a perch to the bird temporarily off duty, as the accumulated droppings on the floor below bore testimony to. In another instance a brick had crumbled away in the mill wall and a swallow appropriated the vacant space, placing in one corner a nest the quarter of a circle in shape. Another erected its nest on the top of a cross beam, which was a mere circular raised rim, deeper certainly, but very like a quite. Inside this circle was a sprinkling of grass-bent horse hair and a few small white feathers dropped by the marsh ducks. On one occasion I found a nest built saucer shaped on a beam. It was quite detached and my removing and replacing it did not seem much to disturb or concern the parent birds. Another, built half circular, was attached to the main shaft of a mill, the droppings from the birds forming a complete circle on the floor, caused by the shaft turning when the mill was in use. Of course the nest did not always stop in the same position, but it was very evident that the parents thought this nothing unusual, for they successfully saw their labours ended. A low one-arch bridge, just above the marsh level, crosses a wide ditch at Tunstall near Eichel, a few miles from Yarmouth. The railway runs over it and a stelt-iron rod bisects the arch, only a foot or two from the water. On this rod, in 1896, two pairs of swallows balanced their nests, each very like an inverted saucepan lid in shape. They lined them with horse hair and rooks feathers. On to this crazy support they fixed their nests by bracket-like attachments of mud, daubed on below as if to shore them up. Here, for all the frequent roar and rumble above, and often furious draughts below, all but one or two eggs were hatched out. Surely an odd place upon which to attach a nest was a swinging half-door in an old disused outhouse, perched upon the windswept sandcliffs at Scrapby. The door must have swung with every puff of wind. A still more curious sight was the open top of a pint mug left on the shelf of a marsh shepherd's hut. Easy entrance was going through a circular hole cut for the stovepipe. The mouth of the mug appeared to have been first crossed by grass-bents, fastened securely by mud-mortar to the edges. Upon this platform, a nest as large as a shallow breakfast-cup was constructed, and eggs laid therein. A swallow was observed, flitting in and out of a mill-tower as late as the 25th of December. The occurrence created some surprise, and on a marshman repairing to the mill, to his astonishment, he found a young bird suspended from the nest by a horse-hair, its leg having become entangled in a loop which held it a prisoner. The old bird's joy on seeing its offspring released was touching, and there is every reason to believe they spent their new year in a sunnier climb. Fortunately it had been an exceptionally mild winter, or probably both would have perished. It is probable that to sleep under more peaceful and comfortable conditions than their parasite-haunted nesting quarters afford them, the swallows and their kindred resort in the late summer and autumn to the extensive reed-beds margining the broads. Here they roost by hundreds and sometimes thousands. They finished the labours of the day by taking short flights to and fro before settling for the night. A confused chattering heralds the dawn, and before daylight has given definiteness of aspect to the mazy labyrinths of reed and rush, they have already begun their daily occupation above and around. In the dim twilight they remind one of snowflakes twirling about. In August they are a stirrer two hours after midnight. Within a few feet of a throw from a water-wheel driven by a steam-drainage mill, a ligger or plank spans a sluice connected with the river Bure. People are constantly walking over the ligger, yet in spite of this a pair of swallows attach their nest beneath it. Surely the birds, with very little trouble, could have secured a far quieter as well as more comfortable sight. Stranded rock-birds. Few resorts of the naturalest are of greater interest to him than the tide-mark on the seashore, for there are constantly to be found there objects claiming his attention and varying with the seasons or the ever-changing moods of old ocean. Amongst them the sports of accident and misadventure figure largely, and there is always the possibility and even probability of discovering amongst the commonplace and familiar debris creatures of rare or curious interest. It has been my practice, usually after strong northerly guiles or easterly winds of undue continuance or boisterousness, to hunt along the line of flotsam flung upon the strand by the farthest reaching bellows. Most noticeable among the birds, which mishap brings there, are the various rock-birds, under which title may be included the puffin, the guillomot, the razor-bell and the little orc. In recent years the guillomot, Burrier-Troyley, has been the most frequent and numerous sufferer, whereas in the 70s and before the razor-bell, Alcatorda, preponderated. These rock-birds can hardly lay claim to the title of local birds. They are simply wayfarers brought into the neighbourhood by their persistent following of the herring, or, as in the case of the puffin, Fratacula, Artica, and the little orc, Mergulis, Allah, when on migration north and south to and from their nesting quarters. At such times, when a set-in of bad weather disturbs the surface of the sea, the pelagic fishes on which they prey seek deeper waters. The birds, too, buffeted by winds and waves, become exhausted and starved, and are gradually driven shorewards, where the breakers complete their discomforture. At such times, feeble birds may be observed making spasmodic efforts to escape beyond the breaking surf, and occasionally partially succeeding, only to be buffeted again into the fatal breakers and eventually thrown ashore, dead or incapacitated. I have seen wearied-out birds sitting doubled up on the margin of the highest wavesweep. On occasion they would make a strenuous effort and wildly scuttle into the wash and get out again, and at chance times they have taken wing only to fall into the trough of the sea just beyond the curl of the bellows. After severe gales, I have found numbers strewn dead along the tide-mark, feather bedraggled, and stiff-limbed. Gilomots found alive and placed in an aviary invariably die, or that I have tried to coax back into life and health, have survived but a few hours or a day or two at the outside. Even birds taken at sea under more favourable conditions cannot be made to feed and cramming seams of little use. They scramble about for a while most awkwardly, and in nearly every case are found, with wings extended, dead upon their breasts next morning. Birds taken from their native rocks uninjured, even after coming on to feed, die one by one. On dissection many birds that I have picked up on the beach have been observed to be without the least particle of fatty matter, the breastbone being very prominent, and the tissues between the flesh and the skin peculiarly bubbled or inflated with air. The late Mr. J. H. Gurney records in the zoologist that on the 11th of May, 1851, vast numbers were found on the shore between Chroma and Jamath, one man collecting, for manure, four cartloads, partly composed of seaweeds, but principally of dead birds. Little Ork The Little Ork, too, has often been a sufferer from adverse winds. The same conditions of weather apply to these as to the Gilomots, but whereas the Gilomots are seldom found dead or dying beyond the reach of the High Watermark, this little rockbird, as if endeavouring to get beyond the fury of the elements, even makes inland to fall eventually from exhaustion, sometimes in the oddest of places, in someone's garden, in a village churchyard, or in the roadway. Unlike its larger relatives, the Little Ork is a frequenter of the deeper waters, and seldom approaches the shore unless driven towards it by stress of weather, and it seems to me that it is during the period of migration that local casualties are most to be noted. From the following notes the reader may form his own conclusions on this subject. The northeast gales of March-end in 1900 were fatal to many rockbirds, on the 2nd and 3rd of April, between Yarmouth and Winterton, several puffins and Little Orks were found stranded. The numbers noted were 30 Little Orks, 2 Razorbills, 1 Great Northern Diver, 2 Gilomots, 20 Puffins. 50 dead puffins, mostly immature, were counted in a three-mile walk late in previous February. After a week's heavy easterly winds in March 1901, I went to Ormsby, walking home by the beach. At the base of the cliffs, in places, a great deal of drift had been blown, and amongst it a number of unfortunate rockbirds. I found several Gilomots, Puffins and Little Orks, only two or three of the former being in a fit state to bring away. They're rather rapid decomposition, and the onslaughts of brooks and crows having spoiled them. Two Razorbills gilded themselves in a herring net, not far from the shore, when pursuing herrings, among which they themselves perished on the 8th of February 1890. On the 1st of January, 1895, a Little Ork was shot on Braden, and some excitement in gunning circles was created by the event. Subsequently, through stress of weather, Norfolk was invaded by weary little travellers of this species. And before the end of the month, 285 had been recorded. I met with a stuffed example of the Little Ork in March 1902, in which the white neck was continued round the oxypert. Mr. B. Dye, a blind naturalist, was, as Mr. J. H. Gurney remarks, the first to notice this variation in a specimen taken a year previously. This, he imagines, to be the perfect winter plumage. Kitty Wake, gull. The least frequently seen of the smaller local gulls is the Kitty Wake, Rissa Tridactyla. It is a peculiarly marine species, spending much of its time far out at sea, and is only to be observed near shore in stormy weather, or more usually passing high overhead in land, in tumbling erratic flight. Severe gulls occasionally prove too much for the bird's endurance, and at times many perish to be presently toppled ashore and become a prey to the hooded crows. I found no fewer than 30 mixed up with dead razor bills along the beach on the 16th of February 1890. In a day or two, but mere remnants remain, the wings attached to the clean pick sternum being found scattered here and there. In very severe and protracted frosts, these fragments are again overhauled, and every muscular particle left is torn out and devoured. Swallow migrations. The passing away of the swallows in autumn to sunnier lands where they delight to spend those months of absence from us is, to them, a somewhat momentous matter. For days previous they have been holding twittering congress in the reed beds at the broad margins, varied with short periods of reflection in long black lines upon the nearest telegraph wires, or, if in the town itself, have gathered together upon some sloping roof facing the east, as if welcoming the sun's warm rays. And yet, with all this demonstration, they usually manage to slip away unobserved, and it is only on very rare occasions that we are privileged to see them actually travelling south. In the eighties I observed a continuous stream of swallows flying past me, just over the helstops, forging ahead silently and swiftly. Each bird had about a cubic yard of space to himself. As this flight took place over the town, I could not estimate the width of the flock, but it was an unbroken procession, which continued for nearly half an hour. On the eighth of October, 1892, I was rambling upon the northern sandhills when I presently found myself in the midst of a similar emigration. Silently and persistently, as before, the birds trooped by, some just skimming over the marim grasses, others passing by at a higher altitude. I could have caught many easily with a landing net. Even here I could not estimate the extent of the flock. They seemed as difficult to calculate as the flakes of a snowstorm. It is noticeable that odd birds occasionally remain behind. Probably it may be some late hatched youngster fearful to travel, or perhaps an old bird anxiously awaiting the fledging of a belated brood. Such birds look sadly out of place, flitting to and fro before the yellowing reed clumps in the pelting rain, or snatching at the flies, dejectedly hanging around our windows, or dully resting under the eaves on a sunnier side of the house. Well into November, one year, I watched from day to day a pair of birds feeding their progeny, which they had at length to leave to their fate. This fact may help to account for the young dead birds found now and again in the nests on the marsh mills, or lying shriveled on the floor, the poor weak things having fluttered out of the nest in their endeavours to follow their anxious parents. I think it was in 1895 that on Boxing Day a swallow was shot on the deans. Hungry Crows During a severe spell of frost in February 1879, Braden became almost completely frozen over, broken only here and there by a narrow wake in a strongly tidied run. The marshlands were covered with snow, and the hooded crows became exceedingly hungry and bold. Some wildfowl resting upon the ice attracted the attention of one of the punt gunners, who contrived, after some skillful manoeuvring, to get within range of them. Pulling the trigger he succeeded in killing a couple, but before he could manage to secure his victims a party of watchful hoodies fell upon the ducks and began tearing them to pieces before his very eyes. Snatching up a shoulder-gun he let fly at them, laying three dead upon the ice when he scrambled out and secured them all. On similar occasions when hard-pressed it is interesting to watch these sturdy birds carefully patrolling the ice and the flint walls in search of crippled or dead wildfowl and patches of blood dotting the ice or snow with a few scattered feathers lying about amid a confusion of crow footprints are wonderfully suggestive. Here a gull has been torn to pieces and there a dead fowl. A well-defined series of double footprints leading towards a common centre mark where a hungry crow alighted and walked in to help his companion. Occasionally one can discern by a tinier blood-spot and a very few dottings of the hoody's toes where a hapless dunlin was discovered bolted almost, if not altogether, whole and the finder had departed without more ado in search of other carrion or victims. When fairly on the hunt the hooded crow will single out a dunlin from a flock and deliberately chase it down nor will he hesitate when hard-pressed to skin a dead comrade and devour him. I have found the skins of gullamots, rooks and small gulls turned inside out by crows as neatly as could have been done by a taxidermist and certainly with greater apparent ease. And I have known a hoody, appropriate half a coconut washed up on the beach and cleaned out the contents and the vile meals this bird contentedly makes off carrion beg a description. All together in this locality the hooded crow is deserving of protection. I do not think the numbers visiting us today are so great as thirty years ago. Hoody has a decided partiality for muscles. Old Bradeners affirm that in severe weather when the tide has fallen and the runs or deeper channels were clear of ice the hooded crow repaired thither and sought for these mollusks. Wrenching one from its busy fastenings the bird would fly up to a certain height and drop it upon the hard surface of the ice descending to devour the contents at its leisure. Failing to smash it at the first attempt the bird would drop it from a yet greater height until the desired end was attained. The same thing obtains in open weather the by-valves being dropped upon the flint of the bird and the flint walls and the broken fragments discussed upon the grass-bear apex of the wall above. In certain spots quite an accumulation of broken shells is to be found in the winter. Hooded crows are seen in considerable numbers on the flats when collecting for the northern flight at March end. Hundreds, many of them apparently paired upon the 31st of March 1898. The latest recorded were five on the 11th of May 1900. Four were seemingly trying to persuade a drooping wing comrade to try and risk the journey. My earliest record of returning birds is the 22nd of June 1896 when I saw six on the marshes. Swifts. It has always been a puzzle to me what becomes of the annual increase of the swift. From my earliest remembrance some six pairs of these birds have yearly made their nesting quarters in the eaves of an old house on the quay facing the south about a hundred yards or so north of the Haven Bridge. Regularly they put in an appearance about the middle of May. The dates varying slightly according to the winds from the 12th to the 17th. In course of time about 30 individuals may be countered and their elders early summer sweeps and curvertings are noisily repeated by the younger members of the community. Swifts are singularly rhythmical in their merry wheelings to and fro the whole body curving off to the right or left or in mounting with circular rushes in unison as if impelled by a common impulse. In fine weather and again in stormy they are often given to vociferous screaming as if rioting were necessary to express the joy of living their shrill notes seem to imply. Various high-flying flies appear to be their favourite prey. I have found a teaspoonful of flies stowed away in the gullet of a dead swift. The St. Mark's Fly, Bibio Marci, is assiduously pursued. On two occasions I have found swifts on the steeple balcony at the base of the spire of St. Nicholas Church and in each instance the blow fly had discovered the carcasses a depression in the atmosphere having most probably carried the scent earthwards. The birds had, no doubt, struck the steeple in their late evening flight. In the autumn, just before leaving great numbers used to fly along the sandhills covering many miles in their flight backwards and forwards. End of Section 1 Section 2 of Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Patterson this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Bird Notes Part 2 Woodcock Mishaps The woodcock is today a very uncertain visitor much less common than in the earlier half of the last century. This, may be, is due to the ruthless collecting of eggs which has for years gone on in its northern horns. Certainly the alteration of its one-time suitable feeding grounds in this locality has largely tended to its banishment from here. With the early October moon woodcock shooters used to hope for a northwesterly wind. On its first arrival it was looked for among the marim covered sandhills where it dropped into rest after its fatiguing flight across the sea and the market gardens, now mostly built upon were a favourite resort. The Reverend Richard Lubbock in his fauna of Norfolk speaks of ten couples being shot on one occasion by one sportsman. Although I have never myself seen the bird actually arrive I know of a number of instances where it has been seen to land. Its usual habit is to come in on bright moonlight nights. Many untoward happenings to the poor immigrant are on record. One alighted on the beach and bunched itself in a sitting attitude under the lee of a boat. There a coast guardsman aspired it promptly took off his jacket over the bird. Another alighted on a rail on the Britannia pier and immediately went to sleep. An angler dropped his rod and tried to seize it but it promptly awoke and slipped through his fingers. Two or three have from time to time dashed against the telegraph wires. In one instance so forcible was the impact that the breastbone was cut in two. A woodcock entangled itself in some herring lint hanging against a foul run and was taken out a bunch of ruffled and broken feathers. Others have been picked up tired out in the street one in a stable and others in equally unlikely places. The majority of my first arrivals are noted between the 10th and 15th of October. On the 21st of November 1900 a woodcock captured in a warehouse in the town came into my possession. It became tame in a day or two and would take worms out of the hand pecking at my fingers petulantly if held out without food. And at the same time uttering a not unpleasant perring note it lived several days in my possession and during that time partokegally of oneside eye strips of fish, liver and meat but it gradually pined and died. I have always understood that the cock was difficult to keep in confinement and I took great pains to prove the contrary. I have kept a great variety of species in my time but never an easier managed one save for satisfying its hunger and here I failed. I am satisfied that it is next to impossible to succeed in doing so for it would require one man's time devoted entirely to digging and otherwise collecting worms for its sustenance. The following are varying weights of this bird which under ordinary circumstances is plump and heavy. November 1881 Example 11 oz. January 17th 1890 Example 15 oz. January 30th 1897 Example 7 ¼ oz. November 2nd 1902 Example 12 oz. November 28th 1902 Example 14 oz. Only once have I found an undamaged dead migratory woodcock washed up by the sea. This was on the 24th of December 1899. It was a small dark variety and exceedingly fat. Incoming of Larks Amongst the most regular and observable of the migrants arriving in autumn is the Skylark usually steadily in small compact flocks varying from half a dozen to fifty in number they are to be seen at all hours of the day flitting overhead at times flocks exceeding flock so incessantly that on either hand it is seldom a Lark is beyond one's vision. This occurs in October and the bird from what I have observed of it prefers to start upon its journey in fairly still weather at daybreak the advanced flocks are seen trooping in they are scattered bands in undulating flight moving very near the surface of the sea as the day brightens succeeding flocks flying higher and higher at length pass over often far beyond gunshots they fly due east to west it is rarely they settle upon the sands but press on to the marshlands still flying inland without halting if the passage has not proved wearisome at times they are glad to rest a short space on the sandhills they do not always escape untoward changes in the atmosphere occasionally wing weary flocks are light upon vessels at sea and swarm too upon the light ships the lamps of which looming out brightly upon the dark waters attract numbers to their vicinity many bewildered birds striking the lanterns to their own hurt and destruction drizzly murky nights are most fatal to them on such a night a dungeon lightsman used to climb the lantern and catching the birds as they flew around or struck him rung their necks and filled his pockets with them he had gathered the weary birds from the decks and rigging by the bucketful principally his captures consisted of larks mixed with starlings thrushes and other birds if let alone the birds would sleep huddled up till morning and then again pursue their journey landwards since the lights have been made to revolve fewer birds are noticed lark pies used to be a regular institution on board the ships long after dark the larks may be heard trooping in uttering their well-known call notes in an endeavour to keep the members of the flock together their line of flight at night is low after a heavy night's influx I have at daybreak found many birds that have been killed by striking the telegraph wires which cross the deans owls, plovers, even ducks have been found thus killed in this locality and I have picked up the pied flycatcher that all the larks do not leave Scandinavia under ordinary conditions is apparent by the fact that during a set in of very severe weather a smaller migration is observed I have dates as late even as the first week of February when exceedingly bad weather reached our shores not long behind them yet even as early as the 20th of February in 1900 I have seen small bunches departing on the northward return journey flying direct northeast the larks coming to us in autumn are slightly darker birds than our own contrasting strangely with the departure mentioned above I append the following notes taken from my diary February the 2nd, 1897 field fares and red wings coming over today from northeast to southwest in continuous flocks a regular second immigration February the 3rd, 1897 larks coming over today by scores and scores in fact some big flocks what does this port end? in the eastern daily press of the 5th of February HCF asks could any of your readers account for the wonderful migration of larks yesterday the 2nd of February from early morning until 5 o'clock continual flocks of larks were passing close to the sea coast coming from northwest going to southeast the note was signed 3rd of February, 1897 Beeston Regis very wild weather with wind blowing from the southeast set in on the 7th full meals a bird is apparently far more concerned about the quantity of its food than its taste or quality indeed so long as that food is its natural supply its state or condition matters but little taste having but secondary choice in the selection I have seen gulls gorged with carrion an immature herring gull Larus Argentatus floated upstream beside the putrid carcass of a dog out of which it pulled flesh piece after piece until it could eat no more then it heavily took to wing and settled directly upon a flat to doze while the digestion began and completed its work a gull had dropped upon the smooth surface of the sea right amongst the teeming shoal of herring fry it had dined so heartily that it could with difficulty either lift itself from the water or be persuaded to do so by repeated stoning when it flew a short way and settled just beyond arms fling in January 1888 two red-throated divers colimbus septentrionales were shot in the roadstead they had been greedily devouring herring fry the larger bird having no less than 42 fish in its crop the largest one measuring 7 inches in length in July 1899 I observed a rook busily employed upon the carcass of a stranded dog a large grey gull late one evening in May was busily pulling at some object rowing up to it I found the laggard making a good round mail or for dead hen the following notes in their original diary form may be of interest December the 22nd 1894 hundreds of lap-wings coming over against a strong northwest guile were very tired and no doubt many were drowned on voyage December the 23rd extraordinarily high tide indeed there came up two flood tides without an ebb between Braden walls broke through near Bernie arms through the pressure of the water myriads of worms were drowned on the flooded marshes and in the market gardens nearer the town another high tide December the 29th January the 3rd 1895 gulls fattening on the dead and now putrefying worms there were hundreds of blackheads and a great number of lap-wings they remained feeding there a week by way of contrast with this substantial spread of good things may be mentioned a grey gull seen enjoying himself immensely with a jellyfish that had been stranded on a mud flat and which he was doing his best to devour the gelatinous fragments clinging around and trickling from his bill being seized and swallowed in a most awkward way it occurred to me that he was amusing himself rather than seriously making a meal of it Braden gulls have a fine time of it during the herring fishery much hard tack and mouldy bread besides dead fish float upstream flung out from the fishing vessels to the great satisfaction of the omnivorous loride on one occasion several large Norwegian loaves drifted up Braden and became stranded the rooks and gulls turned vegetarians for a day or two and what few crumbs and bottom crusts they rejected or failed to gather up were finished off by the rats on the walls wither the remnants floated in May 1902 a herring standing thigh deep in the water by the edge of a mud flat caught and bolted several eels and flounders having had his fill he actually amused himself by capturing several others and these probably with a feeling of regret he let escape again a great black-backed gull was shot by a local gunner in its descent the wounded bird disgorged no less than eleven herrings on the 19th of June 1902 after having had their fill of carrion a parcel of gulls standing on a patch of grass-rack Sostera marina in about three inches of water amused themselves by catching the crabs that scrambled about in search of prey with crabs in their bills the gulls in turn rose a yard or more and dropped the astonished crustaceans into the grass again there was no possible motive beyond the fun of the exercise that could have actuated them I saw a common gull in July 1903 seize and swallow an eel quite a foot long it was not an easy nor a passive resistor and for fully five minutes the contortions of the astounded fish inside the bird's crop were distinctly visible making most grotesque swellings and writhings under the throat and breast of the swallower with commendable determination the bird kept the eel's tail inside not letting it once protrude in its efforts to back out of such an unwanted place a bittern was shot a few years since which appeared to be in uncommonly good plight on dissection however a small pike 14 inches in length was discovered in its crop a great northern diver disporting itself among the roach on Horsey Mere was shot and badly wounded by a broadland gunner on being hauled into the boat it threw up 32 fish some of them large enough to be used as bait this was in January the solitary snipe every autumn the appearance of the solitary snipe Galinaigo Major was as regularly looked for up to the late 70's as was September itself after this period in consequence of an increased traffic upon the sandhills and in the locality around the time the number of soldiers and the amount of people who were wounded the condition of ammunition became apparent gunners in those days went intentionally in search of them amongst the marums where they dropped in tired with their flight this snipe is usually in good condition on arrival it laid remarkably close In 1880, eight were shot in that neighborhood. It has since yearly become scarcer. Hatching Extraordinary As a local nester, the ring plover, aegiolitis, higharticular, was at one time well known. Fifty years ago the number of nests ran into two figures, but year by year as traffic increased and rifle practice still more disturbed the peace and quiet of the sandhills in the vicinity of the old North Battery, the sitting pairs became fewer and fewer until at the present time only three or four nests are present, although fortunately not always found. In the early eighties a dozen nests at the outside were countered. In 1877 an old sportsman, out with his gun in the breeding season, then not unlawful and observing a pair of birds in a great state of alarm, diligently searched and found the nest containing three eggs, four being the usual number. Concluding they were fresh, he put them in his pocket and on reaching home placed them in a collar box and put them on a shelf. An hour or so after hearing peepy cries, his attention was naturally directed to the box and on opening it he discovered a young bird clear of the shell. He placed the other eggs near the fire and hatched these off shortly after. The poor little things were subsequently killed and used up by a taxidermist. Another sportsman of my acquaintance, Mr. B. Dye, who made quite a hobby of watching the habits of this species, found an unhatched egg which he placed in wadding over the top of his oven. This was hatched, as was, two years later, a clutch of eggs. He had observed the time of their deposit and allowed them to remain in the nest until about four days before the young bird should make their appearance, and in a similar way they first saw the light on his oven top. They readily fed from my fingers, accepting small earthworms and might, I am confident, have been easily reared. A day or two after, they too, poor chicks, were made into specimens surrounding a couple of stuffed adult birds. Some of the observations made by Mr. Dye and myself may be worth recording. The site locally selected was a long level of mixed shingle and sand. A depression made by a horseshoof, or especially prepared hollow, was rounded off, and what nests I have seen were lined with small white chalky stones, or smooth pieces of shell less in size than a threatening bet. Occasionally a tuft of sand-sedge, or a large stone, affords a little protection. Chance-time a strong northerly wind has driven the sanddrift so thickly as to completely cover and smooth over the shingle, nests, eggs, and all. Mr. Dye alleges that towards the end of incubation the eggs assume almost a vertical position. He believes it to be due to the movements of the young birds inside the shell. Sir Thomas Brown, author of The Natural History of Norfolk, edited by Mr. T. Sutherle, remarks, they lay their eggs in the sand and shingle about June, and as the erringo-diggers tell me, not set them flat, but upright, like eggs in salt. In a footnote Mr. Sutherle refers to the complement of four eggs, which are arranged with their pointed ends to the centre. The concavity of the nest, therefore, as well as the disproportionate size of the larger end, gives the eggs somewhat the appearance of being placed in the position referred to, but the small end of the egg is always visible. The eggs, as well as the stones around them, retain their heat in a remarkable degree, although that the old birds remain feeding a longer time than those who have not watched them would imagine. The time of incubation is twenty-eight days from the time of laying the first egg. The young run as soon as hatched. They have a habit of squatting at a note of warning from the parent birds, and the eye, once moved from a crouching chick, almost invariably fails to see it again. So closely will a young bird skulk that one may sometimes lay a hand upon it. The young birds are very soon taken by their elders to the tide-mark, and first lessons in sand-hopper-catching are taught them. In a flock of ring-plovers observe anyone approaching, they usually remain perfectly quiescent upon the shingle patches, neither moving nor piping, and so closely does their plumage assimilate with their surroundings that I have actually been deceived. The black of their breasts, as they faced me on one occasion, was so suggestive that I remarked to a friend. Look yonder, I wonder who in the world has been emptying muscle-shells upon the beach. But the supposed empty bivalves suddenly closed as the birds, on an alarm being sounded by a sentry bird, whirled and ran, and directly afterwards took to flight. The Gray Shrike That bold, fearless bird, the great Gray Shrike, Lanius excubitor, visits us in scanty numbers with autumnal immigrants, who, if they manage to cross the seas in anything like amity, speedily get to cross purposes on arrival. Sir Lanius invariably arrives hungry, and it is not the fault of the bird-catchers whose decoy birds often attract his attention on his appearance if he comes to grief in the meshes of a clap net. One was brought me by a countryman in November, 1889, who had unwittingly taken it in a spring cage-trap into which it had dashed after a lark placed in the closed compartment. This it managed to secure somehow, devouring it at once. On the 26th of October, 1900, a hungry great Gray Shrike, evidently but just arrived, alighted on a tree in the heart of the town. Presently it flew at and struck a sparrow, with which it returned to its perch. The shrieking of the unfortunate Finch attracting quite an assemblage of onlookers, before whose eyes it tore its victim to pieces, and made a hasty mail of it, flying away and molested a few minutes after. Ten Birds Sleep At one period of my life, when engaged in the postal service, my duties took me abroad about two hours after midnight. I noticed that the first diurnal birds to awaken were the Hells Martens. Before daybreak they were twittering in their nests as if anxious to be out and doing. By three they were taking the first near-at-home flights of the day. The sparrows were a stir shortly after the hour had struck, and by half-past three most of the others had followed suit. The water and shorebirds are semi-nocturnal. Some, indeed, are awake and busy all night. The gulls, depending for fresh supplies, chiefly on the flood tide or on its earliest recedents, take their naps mostly at low water. On braiden occasionally they are babbling and noisy the night through. Black-headed gulls are often a wing feeding on the night flood, the phosphorescence of the fishy flotsam attracting their attention. These remarks apply to the summer months. In late autumn, when the herring-shells are off this coast, before daybreak, continuous straggling flocks of large gulls, mostly greys, that is, the immature of the black-backs and the herring-gull, pass along the shore, flying low in the dim light of early morning after their night's rest upon the coast and marshes of north and northwest Norfolk. After the days fishing in this neighbourhood, they pass along northward before sunset. At times there is a counter-movement when the birds, having been inland all day, they pass high overhead at sunset in huge, V-like flocks to spend their night upon the sea. Knotts, Wimbrel, Curlews and many others flying overhead noisily as they do in order to keep in touch, the members of their respective flocks are heard on dark, foggy nights in the periods of migration. Their calling is heard above head, even by dwellers in inland cities. I have seen perching birds make the land in the autumnal migration settle immediately upon the sands, even below High Watermark, and tucking their heads under their weary wings drop off to sleep in a moment. With the light ships, tired-out birds frequently settle upon bulwarks, ropes anywhere in fact that offers foothold, huddling too in corners, and drop at once into profound slumber. On the 10th of May 1900 a bunch of thirty-gray plovers are lighted on a braid and flat, and forthwith fell fast asleep. So heavily indeed, that as the afternoon tied rose it reached up to their breasts, and would have presently floated them, had not my pushing my punt into their midst aroused them. When they awoke and flew away to some others that, having previously arrived and rested, were feeding on an adjoining flat, in company with some whimbrel, godwits, and smaller waders. The wind was east-southeast. In November 1902 there were days of fog and mist, the worst possible conditions for the landbirds on their late autumn travels. The outer delzing lightship was, or three successive days, surrounded and swarmed by rooks, hooded crows, and jackdaws. I am inclined to think each day's visitors were fresh arrivals, although it is probable that the same flocks returned each night, attracted there by the bewildering, although friendly, beacon. To a degree they settled by hundreds to rest and sleep. Ropes, lanterns, boats, ball-works were covered with them. On one occasion my informant estimated that at least a thousand birds were aboard, and the decks in the morning looked as if they had been whitewashed. The spoonbills visiting Brayden in May and June prefer a mid-morning or a mid-afternoon nap, and invariably choose to sleep in the centre of a group of gulls, and constantly standing on one leg. The spoonbill rarely drops to a sitting position upon the mudflats. At four a.m. on the nineteenth of May, 1881, Mr. B. Dye rode almost within gunshot of five. Four were asleep, while one, apparently acting as sentry, seemed more given to somnolency than wakefulness. It was the more vigilant and mistrustful gulls surrounding them that gave the alarm, and all flew away together. I myself have noticed that spoonbills are always ready to take the gulls' hint without hesitation, and to their cautiousness, more than its own suspicions, before the days of the close protection, many a banjo-bill owed his escape from certain death. End of Section 2 Section 3 of Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Paterson. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Bird Notes, Part 3 Night in the Reeds. Margining most of the broads, fringing long tracks by the riversides, and covering a large portion of the marshlands, are thick growths of reeds. In the snug and sheltered recesses of these mazy clumps, the bearded tit, the reedbunting, and more than one species of warbler, build their nests and rear their little ones. Night in the summer months is made musical by the chattering reedwarbler, which at intervals wakes up, to run over bar after bar of its familiar little song, and one has but to crackle through the reedmargin with an oar, or fling into their midst a bit of mud, to set bird after bird, warbling its ditty of astonishment. But to my mind, the most interesting tenant of these reedbeds is the common starling, who gathers sometimes in large flocks, to spend in the more sheltered and secluded stretchers the summer and autumn nights. While one may be quietly sitting in his boat fishing, or otherwise idling in the broadlands, one cannot fail to notice, as the afternoon sun begins to lower, compact little bunches of from ten to thirty starlings passing overhead, making for some familiar roosting place, from all directions, more especially from the marshlands. Flock after flock drops down into the reedbeds, the earlier arrivals noisily disputing possession with those constantly coming in. The damage done to the reeds was, in years gone by, deemed considerable, for reed harvesting was then profitable both to owner and labourer, the latter of whom was even tempted to give up other employment to take on this. When reeds commanded high prices from the thatcher and plasterer, there was something like a small campaign carried on against the starlings, which were hustled out of their lodgings and repeatedly shot at. Today they appear to be allowed to retain quiet possession. The ripple of their chatter, and the murmur of their wings in the reedbed, remind one of the distant beating of the surf upon the seashore. With them in autumn congregate hosts of swallows and sand martins, young and old together, crowded out of their all-too-small nests in the marsh mills and roof-trees of the farmsheds, and glad too of a respite from the onsorts of the myriad parasites that made the old home unbearable. The night has scarcely departed ere the swallows flit and chatter around and above the reeds, and the starlings, rested and hungry, betake themselves to their favourite pastures to return at eventide to repeat these manoeuvres, and do so until winter compels them to seek more safe and sheltered roosting-places than they share brittle leafless stems that jostle and crackle and break in the wintry blast. Turtle Doves One of my most interesting memories is of the days when, as I lad, I used to wander among the thick-spreading firs that, up to the seventies, smothered the North Deans. In the holes or depressions between the heaps of blown sand, crowned by a luxuriant growth of the yellow-flowered firs, might often be seen small flocks of turtle doves, Turta Communes, more often in the early morning before their greatest enemy was a foot with gun and bad intent. Missile-thrushers and wood-pigeons, too, came with them to hunt for food, of what kind I could not imagine, unless it was for the succulent leaves of the sea-bindweed and the great seed-pods that later on followed the pale-pink trumpet-shaped flowers. Turta-thrushers, too, came in search of the Nemorealis, crawling among the grass while the dew was still upon it. I have seen over twenty doves in a flock, windchats, stonechats, and wheat-ears nested then in some numbers, as did occasional common and red-legged partridges. But it was the low, plaintiff melancholy, coo-coo, of the turtle that always tempted me to watch him, in preference to all the others. For the thoughts of his faraway home in sacred Palestine, and the associations of the bird, with what I had read and re-read of him in the scriptures, encircled him with a halo of romance. The levelling of the sand dunes by the golfer, and the incursion of the railway, and many other untoward circumstances, has entirely banished the turtle-dove. However, in the more wooded districts it appears to be on the increase. I saw a turtle-dove in 1882 that had been caged for twelve years. Some beautiful hybrids between tumbler pigeons and the turtle-dove were produced in the aviary of a resident several years in succession. Nesting of Sand Martins The last Sand Martins nest within the immediate neighbourhood of the town was in 1881, placed in a hole in a broken sand hill at the rear of an old windmill on the North Deans, within a few yards of where now stands the golf-house. It is strange that, notwithstanding the increased traffic to and from the naval reserve drill-sheds, the persistency of bird-nesting urchins and the like, the birds persevered in nesting there so late even as that. Other nesting locations have been all but deserted in late years. Some scores of birds were turned out at Galston when the cliff slopes facing the sea were levelled and brought under cultivation, and the great falls of cliff at Scrapby, caused by sea storms, have ousted a colony there. Fortunately, railway cuttings offer greater security, and have been chosen by the Sand Martins, whose numbers do not appear to have suffered the decrease observed in kindred species. Beyond Galston, towards Caughton, the nest holes of the Sand Martins are still tenanted in the summer months. In July 1890, I counted seventy-one in an area of some twenty-four square yards. From their shallowness, it seemed that some borings had been begun and given up because of an obstructive stone or a furs-root, or some caprice of the little miner had made it suddenly decide upon another site. Most of the tenanted burrows were situated at least eighteen inches from the abrupt top of the sand cliff, and were protected somewhat by overhanging furs. It was hard work climbing and crawling up the crumbling slope to inspect the colony, for the loose sand gave way at every step, and necessitated three efforts to make one actual advance. The borings were more than an arm's length, and not a nest could be touched. But some urchins had been amusing themselves by inserting long bramble stems, which they had wormed around in circular fashion, and having caught the nests on the hook-like thorns had pulled them out. The nests were built or tumbled together of dried flustra foliocia, picked up from the beach below, and lined with small white gull feathers gleaned in the same locality. The queerest nesting-place of sand-martins I have seen was at Thorpe, in holes in a brick wall, the foundations of which are lapped by the waters of the year. The tenants popped in and out, evidently as satisfied with their mansions as any of their friends, who had chosen the drier sand-holes in a sand-pit. I like the sand-martin. He is a silent, confident little fellow. He is the hardiest of his race, and puts on no ares. He is the best of company when one chooses to tramp along through the rank-grasses topping braiding walls, when, for mile after mile, a muster of them continue flitting around like a swarm of gigantic bees, snapping up, often within arm's length, the dipterus insects brushed out of the grass by the pedestrian. Again in autumn this martin flits around you along by the seashore, especially if you are near to the tide-mark, where the sand-flies and other insects are making merry upon the refuse stranded by the sea, whipping them up as they spring away at your advance. Identification of birds The spread of bird literature and the more systematic scientific formation of private collections of birds have done much towards the furtherance of our knowledge of the comings and goings of many species, and of the occurrence of others hitherto rarely or never before noticed or recorded. It is remarkable that several of the rarest specimens that I have known occur have fallen to the guns of either exceedingly illiterate persons, or sportsmen who, from inexperience and stupidity, scarcely deserve the names. For instance, a lad in September 1883, tramped along Braden walls, and was about to cross onto the railway and make for home, when it occurred to him, not having seen a bird to shoot at, to knock over the first sparrow he came across in order to empty his fouling piece. He observed a small bird nearby, and shot at it, killing it. It turned out to be a rather funnier thing than he hitherto handled, and it was passed on to a naturalist to name, who identified it as a blue throat, cyanocular suesia. In September 1881 a local gunner killed six small birds, and learned after he had cooked them that they were little stints, Trinca minuta. In the earlier half of the last century, an old naturalist, who had a great liking for eating birds, did a similar thing with a red breasted goose, Bernicla ruficollis, and immediately after, was chagrined in seeing the feathers identified as those of the species named. A palaces sand grouse on the North Deen sandhills was thought to resemble a rat, and a gunner killed it and sold it to a dealer for half a crown. Many instances of spoiled specimens might be noted, and many others of birds identified by competent individuals after hair-breath escapes from destruction. Nowadays, however, naturalists are on the alert for curious captures, either in birdnets or by shooting, and nothing exhibiting unusual coloration or strange markings and characteristics is passed over before one or more have sat in judgment upon it, nor does the fortunate possessor part with it until the market price, for him, has reached its highest limit. In recent years the local birdcatchers have learned to recognize certain interesting birds. I will not say rarities, because careful observation has proven them otherwise. The American shorelock, Otocories alpestris, was thought exceedingly rare until 1876, when an educated gunner made the discovery of its frequent appearance. He shot several that year, and although subject to variation in numbers, scarcely a year goes by, but a number are now observed and captured. A rather covetous gunner shot 19 one morning in 1882, another in October 1880, observing a flock of six, killed them all one after the other. They were stupidly tame, like dotterel. The survivors settled not far off after each discharge of the gun. The shorelock is sociable in its habits, affecting the society of snow buntings. Amongst these two, the Lapland bunting, calcareous, Laponicus, is usually noticed. Students of the last named species also arrive almost every winter. In October and November 1892, over fifty were taken and shot. Since then the birdcatchers, who easily distinguish its more silvery note from the call of the snow bunting, do their best to capture it, with only too much success. The adventures attendant on a Stranger's Capture are sometimes interesting. A Caspian plover, Agiolytus, Asiatica, was knocked over on the North Deans, and its murderer left it at a house, where the mistress threw it on the top of the clock to be out of the way of the cat. It was taken down, dusty enough, and shortly after identified, and has since been permanently lodged in Norwich Museum. An old punt gunner, recently deceased, used to be exceedingly painstaking in seeking the Kentish plover, Agiolytus, Cantiana, locally known as the Alexandrine plover. He would closely scan, in the spring migration, every little group of small waders, in order to detect this species, whose mode of progression reminded him, as he expressed it, of a mouse o' runnin'. He was the only man I knew, who could distinguish it by this, from its cousin the ringed plover. It is impossible to distinguish it in the autumn from the young of the commoner bird, owing to its similarity of markings at that period, at least when on the move beside some braiden run. It is easy, of course, to identify the bird when in the hand. Stevenson relates an interesting incident where old John Bessie, the reputed best shot with a punt gun that ever worked braiden, who in May 1827 shot a pair of collared Pratt and Coles, Glariola, Pratt and Cola, on braiden wall. They were so dirty and besmeared with blood, that the wife of Harvey, a noted game-dealer, washed them as she would stockings, and hung them on a pole too dry. Harvey gave twenty shillings for them, and obtained, even after the rough treatment to which they had been subjected, no less than seven pounds. A feruganus duck, fuligula niroca, hung amongst other ducks on Durrant's stall in Yarmouth Marketplace on October 1894. It was passed and repassed during the day by several birdmen, and was then accidentally recognised by a local skin-dealer, who was feeling the foul in a casual, cook-like manner. Some years ago, before the allotments were drained and made into suitable grazing marshes, an old gunner named Samson used to go flighting there at Eventide. In the dusk there came towards him what he took to be a heron. He fired at, and killed it, and paid no more heed to it than flinging it down beside another bird or two previously shot. Notwithstanding he had casually noticed its flight was more sharp and pigeon-like than a hernchers. He flung it into the coal-house, where it was found in the morning by his sister, who shoveled it up with the coals. It was much ruffled, and afterwards sold for two shillings to Watson, a game-dealer, who recognised it as a fine-bitten. The bagging of any wildfowl may be looked upon as a matter of accident, for, unlike a sportsman counting with some degree of certainty his game before shooting it in a partridge preserve, the shore-gunner trusts entirely to chance for what may fall in his way. Even here certain calculations are possible, dependent on the wind and other like circumstances. But it is notorious that all our rarest visitors have been met with when altogether undreamt of. Some years ago a young gunner let fly at what he thought to be a lark, finding afterwards the strange-looking specimen in his hand to be the first recognised locally shot example of the shore-lark. In recent years a gunner on Braden, coming home empty-handed, found his cartridge had jammed. Rather than take the gunner shore-loaded, he thought he would shoot at the first gull that went by in the hope that the cartridge might possibly explode, which it did. Subsequently the bird, which had been stuffed for a herring gull, was discovered to be the yellow-legged gull, Laris cashinans, a species new to the British list. The Gray Wagtail The similarity of the gray wagtail, Motosilla melanopi, to its congeners, and the comparatively little notice given to the various species by local gunners, may account for the infrequency of its recognition. The Messer's Padgett referred to it as not uncommon in winter, the season of the year when it is to be met with. It was often met with near the town refuse heaps by the side of the Bure, since built upon, where various insects and grubs were almost certain to be met with all winter through. The bird's comparatively longer tail and more dipping flight attracted the attention of an observant young gunner who secured examples. A striking habit of the species is its propensity for persistently frequenting certain resorts. If constantly disturbed it invariably returns to the same locality. The presence of some small crustaceans near my boathouse doors on Christmas Day 1899 attracted the Gray Wagtail, which although repeatedly disturbed in order to test this predilection came back time after time. A January Immigration On the 18th of January 1881 raged a most disastrous gale when amid snow and storm many vessels were wrecked on Yarmouth Beach. The day before was intensely cold, so much so that the large pebbles, still moist from the retreating waves, froze over and with each wetting the ice formed a thicker incrustation, until they looked like nodules of pure ice. On that date a marked in rush of small land birds took place. Thousands of field fares and red wings simply poured in, and for an hour or so they came on like a huge feather snowstorm. They passed almost within arm's length, bewildered, ruffled and exhausted. I shot some red wings. They were exceedingly poor. Various finches, linets, red poles, twights and the like were to be distinguished. Many dropped upon the sand, huddled in ruts made by the passing of cartwheels, fell asleep at once and were to be picked up by hand. A sparrow that I recognized by sight called my attention to his incoming by his familiar call note. A bird disaster. Exceedingly rough weather prevailed during the period of migration in September 1881. An unprecedented immigration of raptorial birds took place just prior to the weather reaching its severest. During the second and third week in the month, buzzards, harriers and hawks were reported in all directions. On the morning of the twenty-fourth I went for a walk along the North Beach and was surprised to find, scattered here and there on the tide-mark, a number of dead birds. I picked up three sparrow hawks. In the crop of one only I discovered a few fragments and some feathers of a perching bird. Three common buzzards, a marsh harrier and a razor-bill were also found, but also mauled and bedraggled by the storm as to be useless for preservation. Quite a series of mishaps occurred to such as arrived alive. Many were shot. A sparrow hawk struck a gas-lamp in a row and was found stunned, and a buzzard injured itself by flying against the signal light on the sailor's home. Several honey-buzzards were shot, one in the act of robbing a hive in an orchard. Do partridges migrate? The invariable answer of well-informed naturalists is in the negative. In my boyish days, when the North Deans were covered with a luxurious growth of furs, the red-legged partridge, Cacobis Rufa, frequently nested there, and, moreover, it was the common practice of boys in the month of April to go on to the Deans and Marum Hills in search of exhausted Frenchmen, and not seldom, in the latter half of that month and early in May, a few birds were secured by hand after a scampering chase. Early in April 1882, several flew in from direct east with an easterly wind, and some were captured. In 1877, a number of these birds dropped in the vicinity of the town. One actually, which I saw, alighted amongst some furniture exposed for sale in the marketplace, and afforded a most delightful hunt to the great detriment of chairs and tables and the discomforture of their owner. I eventually secured the prize, and this, with another just captured, lived happily until killed by rats in my back garden. It was the general belief of the gunning fraternity in those days that these birds came directly overseas. Against this belief must be placed the fact, according to Sir Thomas Brown, that in his day the French red-legged partridge is not to be met with. It was introduced into East Anglia by the Marquis of Hartford and Lord Rendelsham in or about the year 1770. Another consignment was turned out in 1823. Booth mentions that in early spring numbers are frequently picked up, drowned in the Norfolk Boards, and that the natives look upon them as fresh arrivals. He says, I myself, having often noticed their quarrelsome disposition, believe that while flying in pursuit of one another over the water, they become confused, and falling are unable to regain the shore. Stevenson took considerable pains to attempt a satisfactory solution of the matter, and gives instances of the bird being found on beach and deans, both at Yarmouth and Chroma. One observer flushed a covey of from 20 to 30, which flew round once or twice and then out to sea, still keeping on in a direct course until he lost sight of them, although using a good glass. A Mr. Mays informed Stevenson that they come over about the middle of March or beginning of April, the wind mostly southeast and south. I have seen them when I have been out to sea, four or five miles from land. Probably the theory propounded by Stevenson may be the right one, after all, where he suggests a wandering instinct in this partridge, and attempts at leaving our shores. These birds, he says, or a portion of them at least, some probably falling short and being drowned at sea, misjudging the distance and their own cars of flight, would return again to our shores in an exhausted state, and when picked up under such circumstances would very naturally be regarded as foreigners just arrived on the coast. I have, on one or two occasions only, found dead examples on the beach. It may be urged that the excessive weight of the birds, when compared with their seeming feebleness of wing, would prevent a long flight across seas. But the same might be said with regard to the quail, which is an annual, although in this locality, lessening immigrant.