§40 THE NATURALIST. 



NOTES ON THE ORNITHOLOGY OF NORFOLK.— 

 RARITIES. 



By T. E. Gunn, Norwich. 



Falco hali^etus. — The Osprey lias occurred in two instances in Nor- 

 folk during the present season. The first instance I find recorded in the 

 Norwich Mercury of the 1st Nov., Irom which paper I quote the follow- 

 ing : — " A few days since George Martin, gamekeeper to J. L. Bedding- 

 field, Esq., of Ditchingham Hall, shot a remarkably fine specimen of the 

 Osprey or fishing Hawk, near the canal in the park, it measured six feet 

 two inches between the points of its wings, and was preserved by Mr. Wm. 

 Banham, of Bungay." This I should say is an unusually large specimen. 

 On the 26th instant I saw a fresh killed male specimen, wdiich was shot 

 the day previous in the neighbourhood of Stalham ; this specimen mea- 

 sured tw^o feet in length, and five feet eight inches across its extended 

 wings to the point of each ; longest quill feather in the wing fifteen inches ; 

 tail, ten inches ; irides, yellow ; cere, dark bluish ; legs and toes, pale 

 bluish green ; claws, black and very curving, forming nearly a half-circle. 

 It apparently had subsisted well during its stay in that locality, as it was 

 very fat, just previously to its capture it had been regaling itself with a 

 perch fPercafluviatilisJ, as its stomach on being opened was found quite 

 filled with the remains of one. 



Falco apivorus. — A splendid immature male of Falco apivonis was 

 shot at a small village named Gatesend, about six miles distant from 

 Takenham on the 26th of last September, another individual (probably 

 a female) has been seen several times since in the same locality. The 

 captured specimen measured twenty-two inches from the tip of its beak to 

 the end of its tail, and four feet across its extended wings to the extreme 

 points ; the whole surface of its plumage is of a uniform brown, feathers 

 on crown of head and back of neck, small and pointed, each terminat- 

 ing with a small spot of dull white ; the space round the eyes, and the 

 the throat, white ; irides, brown ; cere, yellow ; beak, horn colour, darker 

 towards the tip ; legs and toes, nearly black. I dissected its gizzard which 

 contained the renjains of wasps and honey-comb. This is the second 



