246 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



ascertain all tlie particulars he could respecting the 

 time and place of its occurrence. In reply, Mr. Frere 

 informed me that the specimen in question was killed in 

 March, I860, by Robert Baker, servant to the Eev. T. 

 L. French. It was shot close to the railroad in a rough 

 meadow at Thrandeston, in Suffolk. At this time it 

 was picking about among the knots of earth, and would 

 not allow Baker to approach within thirty yards. Mr. 

 Frere also told me that he had good grounds for sup- 

 posing that this was not the only instance in which this 

 species had been observed in England, his brother-in- 

 law, Captain Jary, having on several occasions watched, 

 for some time, a bird of similar appearance at Walsham, 

 in Norfolk, in October, 1854. Caj)tain Jary, who 

 though not a scientific ornithologist, has a very good 

 knowledge of English birds, in answer to inquiries on 

 this subject, wi'ites as follows : — ' Having referred to 

 Sturnella ludoviciana in Audubon's plates, I am quite 

 sure it is the bird that I saw at Walsham, in the month 

 of October, 1854. I have it in my diary. I thought 

 when I first saw it that it might be a golden oriole. 

 The first time I observed it was in front of the house, 

 near a plantation. I had no gun with me or could have 

 shot it. I watched it for some time on the soft ground, 

 but heard no note. I saw it again next day in a 

 field among some larks; it flew away with a quick and 

 hurried flight. Two days afterwards I saw it a third 

 time, but I could not get a shot at it, as it flew away 

 when I was about seventy yards off.' After a subse- 

 quent examination of Mr. Frere's specimen, Capt. Jary 

 repeated his conviction of the bird observed by him 

 having been of the same species." 



In some further remarks on the genus Sturnella and 

 its geographical distribution, Mr. Sclater describes the 

 American meadow-starling as *^a well known bird in 

 the United States of America and Canada, where it 



