284 BIED8 OF NORFOLK. 



ornithological phenomena, an almost unprecedented 

 quantity of cocks were killed in the month of December. 

 Mr. Alfred Newton, who took some pains at the time 

 to ascertain the numbers shot in different localities, 

 states ("Zoologist" 1853, p. 3754), that "in the first 

 week in December thirty and thirty-three were respec- 

 tively killed, on two successive days, at Melton Con- 

 stable, near Holt; and on the next day the same 

 shooting party bagged ninety-three in the Great Wood 

 at Swanton Novers." He was also informed on good 

 authority that "no such number as this last had been 

 seen there for twenty years ; and further, that at least 

 one hundred and ten might have been killed if the 

 other game had been disregarded." These coverts are 

 always reckoned as the best in Norfolk for woodcocks, 

 but at other likely spots near the coast considerable bags 

 were made. At Felbrigg, says Mr. Newton, "twenty- 

 seven, thirty, fifteen, and twenty-one respectively were 

 killed on four days in the second and third weeks o'f 

 December;" and at Holkham "twenty-nine in one 

 day about the same time." Mr. Newton, however, 

 gives reasons for believing that in this instance the 

 increase was rather local than general, possibly induced 

 by the flooded state at the time of a considerable 

 portion of the county, and that such was the case 

 seems the more likely from the fact that the amount 

 killed in some parts of Suffolk, usually considered 

 extremely favourable for this species, was far below 

 the average. Considering, also, as before stated, that 

 many annually resort to the low carrs and planta- 

 tions in the neighbourhood of the broads, it is quite 

 possible that these, when driven from that district by 

 the rising of the waters, collected in large bodies on 

 the higher grounds, whilst fresh arrivals on the coast 

 had no inducement to disperse themselves further over 

 the county. 



