4 BIBDS OP NORFOLK. 



labour of man by draining and cultivating these fens 

 and morasses has greatly diminished their numbers, so 

 much so that we are uncertain whether they remain 

 in their old accustomed haunts, but there can be 

 no doubt that the greater part migrate northward to 

 breed." When speaking of it, however, in his " List '* 

 of Norfolk Birds (1829), he says, " this bird is not, as its 

 name imports, common in the county, as from some 

 cause or other it has become rare, being much more 

 difficult to procure than the bean goose." All other local 

 authors repeat only the same tale of its scarcity as 

 compared with former days, without adding anything 

 as to its past history. Thus Messrs. Sheppard and 

 Whitear (1825) writing of the bean goose remark, ^^ it 

 is said to be more common than the grey lag goose." 

 The Messrs. Paget (1834) having applied the specific 

 name of ferus to the bean goose, have, I imagine, inad- 

 vertently reversed the position of the two species as 

 to abundance or scarcity, as in 1845 Mr. Lubbock, 

 speaking of the grey lag as "very rare in Britain," says, 

 he was informed by the late Mr. Lombe "that years 

 elapsed before he could procure a specimen." Again in 

 1846, Messrs. Gurney and Fisher thus follow in a 

 similar strain, "This species is said to have formerly 

 visited Norfolk, but we never remember to have seen 

 a specimen taken in the county. We are, however, 

 informed that it is still occasionally, though very rarely, 

 met with." It must not, however, be presumed from 

 these extracts that the rarity of this goose during the 

 last fifty or sixty years, tends in the slightest degree 

 to invahdate its claim to be considered as a former 

 resident, since the avocet, the black-tailed godwit, and 

 even the bustard itself, afibrd evidence that certain 

 indigenous species when once banished from their 

 ancestral haunts may be reckoned amongst the rarest 

 of our migratory visitants ; and though still breeding in 



