Hare Birds hilled in Suffolk, \ \ 7 



purea) was obtained on the borders of a large water, known 

 by the name of King's Fleet, near the mouth of the Wood- 

 bridge river. The bird rose from the thick reeds which 

 skirt the water, and was at first supposed to have been a 

 bittern by the person who shot it. From the redness of the 

 plumage, it may be easily mistaken for the bittern when first 

 seen ; and it has much of the habits of that bird in keeping 

 much concealed in reeds and rushy swamps. I have known 

 two other instances of this species of heron occurring in this 

 county ; and I have also known two or three individuals to 

 have been met with in Norfolk, within a few years. This 

 bird was in the plumage of the first year. Two great shrikes 

 (L. excubitor) have been killed ; one shot in this parish,, De- 

 cember, 1835; the other was caught in a common trap-cage 

 set for small birds, in a garden on the outskirts of Colchester* 

 in February, 1836. Another was seen about the same time 

 in this neighbourhood. Wood sandpiper (Totanus Glareola): 

 a specimen of this bird, shot in the vicinity ol Yarmouth, 

 September, 1835; also, about the same time, two specimens 

 of Temminck's tringa {T. Temminckii), both birds of the 

 •year ; and in May last an adult bird of the same species was 

 obtained on Breydon Broad, Spotted snipe (Totanus fuscus) : 

 one shot on Breydon, September, 1836. Curlew tringa 

 (T. subarquata) : several occurred in summer plumage, near 

 Yarmouth, in May last. Fork-tailed petrel: one found dead 

 near Ipswich in December last. Skua gull (L. Cataractes) : on 

 the coast, near Yarmouth, October, 1836. Several great 

 snipes (Scolopax major) have been shot, during the last 

 autumn, on the Suffolk and Essex coasts. Hawfinch (Cocco- 

 thraustes vulgaris) : six or seven specimens of this bird were 

 shot near W'oodbridge, in the latter end of November, 1836. 

 The dipper (Cinclus aquaticus) : one shot early in the autumn 

 of 1835, on the borders of a large fishpond, St. Osyth, Essex. 

 The occurrence of the dipper in this part of the island is 

 extremely rare. The common crossbill was rather nume- 

 rous, in some localities in this district, during the last year. I 

 first observed them about the 20th of July, 1835 ; and in the 

 month of August we had a large flock in some fir plantations 

 in this neighbourhood. When I first discovered them, many 

 of the young birds were in the nestling feathers, they fed 

 principally on the larch cones; but they also attacked the 

 spruce and other kinds. They remained with us through the 

 autumn and winter months. I did not observe any after 

 March; but, in the beginning of the month of June following, 

 a flock of fifteen or twenty were noticed in the same plant- 

 ations which they had frequented during the winter months, 



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