4 ORNITHOLOGY OF NORFOLK. 
ance to such species as formerly bred in the vicinity of the coast. The 
general enclosure of commons and waste lands has likewise in its turn, 
affected other classes of birds, as well as the thinning of hedgerows and 
other farming operations resulting of late years from an improved system of 
agriculture. Tothe latter cause may, in some degree, be attributed the 
much to be regretted extinction of the Great Bustard in Norfolk, its last 
abiding place in the whole kingdom. The adoption of horse-hoeing, un- 
doubtedly, facilitated the discovery of its nests and eggs amongst the spring 
corn, (most of them being found in fields of rye,) and the high price given 
for the eggs, which, for the most part, were placed under hens and hatched, 
with the hope of rearing the young birds, caused them to be taken whenever 
met with. The last Bustard killed in this county was a female obtained at 
Lexham, near Swaffham, in 1838, the remnant of a small flock of hens, 
which had for some years frequented that neighbourhood; but no male 
birds then existing, their eggs were dropped about at random during the 
breeding season, and thus the whole race became entirely extinct. As an 
accidental migrant, can it alone be included in the “ Norfolk List” at the 
present time, specimens having occurred here, as in other counties, which 
may fairly be considered as migratory visitants. Drainage and cultivation, 
however, but share with other causes a common result; the great increase 
of gunners, owing to the cheapness of firearms, and the ready means of 
transit by rail to almost all parts of the county, (the iron road itself travers- 
ing between Norwich and Yarmouth, some of the finest snipe marshes of 
former days), have done much towards completing that exterminating system 
which years of indiscriminate egging was fast effecting by itself. Rather 
may we wonder that so much still remains to the sportsman and naturalist 
than that so many familiar forms have ceased to appear except as temporary 
sojourners on their migratory course. , 
There is one group of birds, however, which demands a somewhat sepa- 
rate notice, its persecutions arising from a very different cause. No Falcon, 
Hawk, Harrier, or Buzzard can long expect to escape the doom of its race in 
a strictly game preserving district like the county of Norfolk ; and scarcely 
can it be said that any birds of this class but the Kestrel and Sparrow-hawk 
are still resident amongst us, although the nests of all three of the Harriers 
are occasionally found in the neighbourhood of the Broads. The Tawny 
and Barn Owls are both far less common than they used to be, and the 
Short-eared Owl, though a regular autumnal migrant, has ceased almost 
entirely to nest in our fens, so many of its former haunts no longer exist- 
ing in their normal state. The Long-eared Owl, on the contrary, at one time 
scarce, has, through the great increase in our fir plantations, become a 
pretty numerous resident amongst us, in spite of its nests being syste- 
matically plundered. But if the Raptores have suffered at the hands of 
the gamekeeper (and included alike in his list of “ feathered vermin” are 
the Raven, the Magpie, and the Carrion Crow), the smaller insessorial birds, 
more especially the warblers that visit us in summer, are benefited greatly 
through the care of the game. The dense woods afford both food and shel- 
ter, and their own little nests are safe from prying eyes, since no intruding 
footstep is allowed to scare the sitting Pheasants. This is perhaps the only 
class which can really be said to have benefited by recent changes, for if the 
marked decrease in our birds of prey has caused a corresponding increase 
amongst the Finches, Buntings, and Larks, the barbarous and unreasoning 
system of slaughter so recently adopted, by means of poisoned wheat, bid 
fair to effect at one time the same, lamentable state of things that now exists 
in France. The warning, however, received from that country has roused 
the friends of the “ little bird” amongst us, and the various appeals in its 
favour that have appeared in our metropolitan and provincial journals 
have been happily supplemented by legislative enactments tending to the 
preservation of the feathered tribes. ‘“ Man cannot do without the bird” as 
an insect eater, and although, when undiminished in the natural way, their 
