260 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



I find that a pair were sliot at Wells in 1856, on tlie 

 21st of November, and two more at Yarmontli on 

 December 16tli. Again on the 12th of January, 1862, 

 three specimens were sent up to Norwich from Sher- 

 ingham beach with snow-buntings, knots, dunlins, 

 and a purple sandpiper ; and on the 26th of May, 

 1862, during a severe frost, several couples were 

 exhibited for sale, with other birds, in the Norwich 

 market. On the 8th of January, 1867, a male bar-tailed 

 godwit was taken in a meadow near Eeepham, as Mr. 

 F. Norgate informs me, most probably carried thus far 

 inland by a heavy gale at the time. 



Mr. Harting describes the note of this bird as re- 

 sembling the words " lou-ey, lou-ey." 



I never remember to have heard the name of '' Half- 

 curlew" applied to this species on the Norfolk coast, as 

 stated by Mr. Johns in his "British Birds in their 

 Haunts," being a term here commonly and more appro- 

 priately used for the whimbrel, but at Blakeney Mr. 

 Dowell states that bar-tailed godwits are known to the 

 local gunners by the singular appellation of "Picks" and 

 **Scamells." These words are of course written down 

 phonetically, but whence their derivation I am at a loss 

 to conceive. He believes by " Scamells" are meant 

 the females and those found singly in autumn ; and by 

 "Picks," the smaller males most abundant in the 

 spring flocks. He further suggests that the word 

 " Picks " may possibly have originated from their 

 manner of feeding, as the turnstone in the same locality 

 is termed the " Tangle picker " ; but the definition of 

 " Scamells" I must leave to the ingenuity and research 

 of the indefatigable editor of " The East Anglian." 



On the Sussex coast this same species is known as 

 the "sea woodcock," and Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., 

 assures me that a Pagham gunner once pointed out to 

 him a godwit on the wing, and maintained his assertion 

 that it was a woodcock. 



