AVOCET. 241 



date of extinction, but it is probable from the following 

 particulars kindly communicated by Mr. W. J. Cubitt, 

 of this city, that it occurred between 1822 and 1825, 

 as he remembers, about that time, visiting Salthouse, in 

 summer, with Mr. Jary, of South Walsham, when two 

 or three couples were shot, and a boy waded through 

 the swamp and brought out a young bird. A single 

 bird was left, which he understood was seen there 

 for some time after, but he fears that this expedition 

 saw the last of the avocets. They bred on the salt- 

 marshes, subject to constant inundations from the sea, 

 beyond the shingly beach, and consequently the ground 

 was fall of holes and soft places, which rendered it 

 difficult to reach their breeding sites. From the 

 records of specimens killed subsequently to that date, 

 at Salthouse, it seems that until those marshes were 

 altogether reclaimed in 1851, stragglers from time to 

 time still visited their old haunt, on their migratory 

 passage ; but of late the few that have appeared on 

 our coast have been met with either on Breydon or in 

 the neighbourhood of Lynn. In Sir William Hooker's 

 MS. one is said to have been shot at Palling, near 

 Yarmouth, on the 3rd of May, 1831 ; and in the same 

 year, as Mr. Joseph Clarke informs me, three were killed 

 at Salthouse of which two are now in the Saffron 

 Walden Museum. 



In the " Zoologist " for 1843 (pp. 148 and 182), Mr. 

 W. Ei. Fisher records two examples as killed on Breydon 

 in May and July, 1842; and on the 28th of March, 

 1843, a female was also shot on Breydon, and two 

 others were subsequently seen on the same "muds," 

 of which one was killed. Of the first of these, which 

 was only wounded in the wing, and ran very swiftly 

 when pursued, Mr. Fisher states that " the gizzard 

 contained some of the small black beetles which abound 

 in the mud banks of the river, and what appeared 

 2i 



