276 BIRDS OF NOEPOLK. 



Mr. Stevenson says, " these birds are still met with 

 on our coast throughout the summer months, and both 

 young and old together during autumn and winter, and 

 at times in considerable numbers. I have seen the old 

 birds off Cromer in full summer plumage, both in May 

 and June, and, in the latter month especially, have 

 observed small flights some three or four miles out at 

 sea, for the most part towards the close of day, flymg 

 north-westward like the larger gulls. All the fishermen 



obtain is in an unpublished MS. work left by the late Rev. George 

 Muuford, entitled " Outlines of the Natural History of Hun- 

 stanton," which contains, in a chapter on the birds, the following 

 paragraph : — " Of the rock birds, it is said the Foolish guillemot 

 (Uria troile), the puffin (Fratercula arctica), and the razorbill 

 {Alca tarda) occasionally breed in the cliff, each of these laying a 

 single egg." I am indebted to the Eev. E. B. Montford, son of 

 the writer of the above, for a sight of this MS. ; it was written 

 about the year 1856 (dated 1858), and in a very popular style. I 

 am not aware that the writer, although an excellent botanist, made 

 a special study of Ornithology, and the fact that the passage was 

 not reproduced in Mr. P. Wilson's guide to Hunstanton, published 

 in 1864, which contains a list of the birds from Mr. Munford's 

 ■MS., I think is conclusive evidence that the authority for the 

 statement was not considered of much value. There is no 

 mention of the guillemot or any of its allies breeding at 

 Hunstanton in Sir Thomas Browne's letters, although he writes 

 to Merrett, " that fowl, which some call a willick, we meet 

 with sometimes ; the last T saw was taken on the sea-shore," 

 but says nothing of its nesting at Hunstanton. Mr. le Strange 

 tells me this bird is not mentioned in the le Strange " House- 

 hold Book," and that he has questioned an old gamekeeper on 

 his estate, eighty years of age, who had no recollection of any 

 such bird. This is only negative evidence, but it is all I can obtain. 

 On the other hand, these cliffs afforded nesting shelter to the 

 peregrine falcon as late as the year 1820, and, although they are 

 now deserted even by the jackdaws, which till within the last few 

 years bred there in numbers, and only inhabited by sparrows and 

 swifts, they are in every way suitable (or were when less disturbed) 

 for the nesting of this species, and there is nothing improbable in 

 the story ; it is not, however, likely that the puffin ever nested 

 there. Mr. J. H. Gurney has a very ancient specimen of the 

 guillemot in full breeding plumage, which was picked up at Hun- 

 stanton below the cliffs, perhaps about the year 1824, by the Rev. 

 Edward Edwards (whose daughter the Rev. George Munford 

 married), and given to him ; and it is possible the idea that this 

 species bred there ma}' have originated from that circumstance. 

 I think, however, that unless further information can be unearthed 

 the case must be considered at least not proven. 



