388 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Blakeney, out of a flock of about thirty, by Mr. 

 H. M. Upclier, and Messrs. T. W. and J. E. Cremer, of 

 Beeston. These birds were sent up to Norwich, to be 

 stuffed on the 27th, and on examination I found the 

 ovaries, in all but one, more developed than in any 

 previous specimens — some eggs as large as small hemp- 

 seeds ; and several of the quill feathers in the wings had 

 been recently moulted. 



June?— In the "Field" of June 27th, Mr. Ward, 

 Taxidermist, of Vere Street, London, recorded a female 

 from Norfolk as recently sent to him, but this, I 

 have every reason to believe, was in reality a male, the 

 distinctive pecuharities of plumage not being sufficiently 

 known at the time. 



July 1st. — One female at Holme, near Hunstanton. 

 This bird, which also came into the possession of Mr. 

 Dodman, of Titchwell, was, as Mr. Southwell informs 

 me, found dead on the beach at Holme. " Its death was 

 caused by a shot wound. The contents of crop and 

 gizzard were precisely the same as in others from the 

 same locality; and judging from its full and healthy 

 appearance, its food must have agreed well with it." 

 Mr. Southwell gives the weight of the first pair killed 

 in this locality as nine and three-quarter ounces each, 

 male and female. I have no doubt whatever that whilst 

 staying myself at Hunstanton, in the beginning of June, 

 I saw more than once a small flight of these birds on the 

 beach at Holme. On one occasion I tried to get near 

 about four or five birds, which at a distance I took for 

 grey plover. They rose wild, however, and came over 

 my head out of shot, and their flight and cry — the 

 latter quite new to me — made me wonder at the time, if 

 they could be anything I had never met with before. 



July 7th.— Mr. Thomas Dix, of West Harling, 

 informed me that a male bird was kiUed at SizeweH, 

 in Suffolk, on the above date. 



