24 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



birds were nearly all in adult plumage, but in poor 

 condition, as if driven southward by stress of weiitber, 

 although, as before stated, the winter with us proved 

 unusually mild. In the last week of December, several 

 more bean-geese, and another bernacle from Burling- 

 ham, were sent to Norwich; and in the first week of 

 January, 1852, with scarcely any appearance of frost, 

 a pink-footed goose from Blakeney, two white-fronted 

 from Hickling, and several brents, kept up the excep- 

 tional character of the season. In the second week of 

 March, 1853, with severe frost and snow, several bean- 

 geese and brents, with a variety of wild-fowl, appeared 

 in the market; and the severe frost in January, 1864, 

 brought examples of nearly all the more common species. 

 In February and March, 1855, one of the most severe 

 seasons I remember, many bean, white-fronted, and brent- 

 geese with whooper and Bewick's swans, and a strange 

 variety of rare fowl and other birds, came into the 

 hands of our poulterers and bii-d-stuffers, as recorded 

 by myself at the time in the " Zoologist " (p. 4660) ; and 

 since then the equally remarkable winters of 1860-61 

 and 1870-71, have been the only occasions on which I 

 have known wild geese, in any number, exhibited for 

 sale in this city. This may, however, in some degree 

 be accounted for, during the last few years, by the 

 extension of railway communication to nearly all parts 

 of our coast, thus enabling local gunners to send their 

 birds direct to the London markets. 



The following are the only examples of the bean 

 goose that have come under my notice during the last 

 ten years, in marked contrast to the numbers of j)ink- 

 footed geese recorded in my notes during the same 

 period: — One January 10th, 1861, during a sharp frost; 

 one November 29th, 1862, after an early fall of snow ; 

 two January 15th, 1864, during sharp weather; and 

 one January 31st, 1867, a rather mild season. All these 



