326 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



recently, as many have been sliot on the opposite side of 

 the river, about Brundall, Strumpshaw, and Buckenham; 

 but this can only be effected by residents, shooting 

 almost daily so long as any snipes are to be found.'* 



The following are a few cases in which exceptional 

 numbers have been killed in Norfolk, as recorded by 

 local authors, or gleaned from the '^ hearsay " evidence 

 of sporting friends : — 



The Messrs. Paget, m thQ introduction to their 

 " Sketch," state that in the winter of 1829, five 

 hundred snipes, with a proportionate number of plover 

 and wild fowl, were brought in to a Yarmouth game- 

 dealer on one market day. A similarly remarkable 

 occurrence is also given by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher 

 in the Introduction to their "Birds of Norfolk," who 

 state that on the 11th of December, 1844, five hundred 

 snipes and eight hundred dunlins were brought to one 

 dealer at Yarmouth ; and on the 16th, two hundred 

 dunlins and three hundred snipes. At Sutton, some 

 eighteen years ago, Captain Rous Icilled over forty couples 

 in one day to his own gun, and the marshman who was 

 with liim, merely taking the outskirts, killed fourteen 

 couples. In the Langley and Buckenham marshes many 

 years ago, when in fine condition, a single sportsman is 

 said to have killed eighty couples to his own gun ; and 

 about five and twenty years back, I am told that 

 Mr. Robert Fellowes killed seventy-nine couples in one 

 day at Horsey. Somewhere about the year 1859 or 1860, 

 and in the month of November, Mr. Dowell informs 

 me that immense fiights of snipes appeared on the 



* The marslimen are usually aware of the arrival of the snipes 

 in any large quantities, and, communicating at once with some 

 neighbouring sportsman, he stands a fair chance of making a bag 

 the nest morning. An individual, however, from a distance, who 

 probably cannot obey the summons before the second day, in all 

 probability finds that the snipes have shifted their quarters. 



