18 BIRDS OP NOKFOLK. 



Frere : — "About ten years ago, in tlie montli of Eebruary 

 or March, a large flock of wild geese were attracted to 

 the town of Diss by the lights on a foggy night, and 

 from the sound of their cries, seemed to fly scarcely 

 higher than the tops of the houses. They came about 

 seven p.m., and, being Sunday evening, they appeared to 

 be especially attracted by the lights in the church, and 

 their incessant clamour not a little disturbed the con- 

 gregation assembled for evening service. From that 

 time until two a.m., when the fog cleared off and they 

 departed, they continued to fly round and round utterly 

 bewildered. One bird, happened to fly so low as to 

 strike a gas lamp outside the town just as a police 

 constable was passing by, who very properly, as the 

 bird was making a great noise outside a public house, 

 took it into custody, and the next day, being quite 

 unhurt, it was sent off to Dr. Kirkman's lunatic asylum, 

 at Melton, where it lived for some years, and may 

 possibly be alive now. It proved to be a rather small 

 specimen of the pink-footed goose." 



The very severe winter of 1870-71, like that of 

 1860-61, before referred to, was remarkable for the 

 immense number of wild geese, (almost entirely brents 

 and pink-footed) that visited our coast, and of which, 

 a very unusual number were procured. At Holk- 

 ham, as Lord Leicester informs me, over a hundred 

 pink-footed geese were shot between the 26th and 

 31st of December, but many of them left the marshes 

 when the hard weather commenced. On the 30th 

 of the same month Mr. H. T. Coldham, of Anmer, 

 kindly sent me a specimen that he had shot out of 

 a flock of eleven in that neighbourhood, which rose 

 from a turnip field, on rather high ground. On the 

 same day I saw two in the Norwich market, but could 

 not ascertain on which side of the county they had 

 been killed. On the 3rd of January (1871), I had 



