ORNITHOLOGY OF NORFOLK. 
THE reputation which this county has always maintained as being 
one of the richest Ornithological districts in the United Kingdom, is 
quite unaffected by those local causes which have of late years altered 
the habits of many of our resident species. Not only is its bold projecting 
coast-line, extending from Yarmouth on the extreme eastern point to Hun- 
stanton and Lynn on the north-west, peculiarly favourable for the advent 
of all migratory species, but the variety of attractions presented by the 
diversity of the soil and sudden transitions from one formation to another, 
are such, perhaps, as can be nowhere equalled in the same extent of 
country. On the coast itself we find a strange alternation of sand and 
shingly beaches, salt marsh, cultivated land, and low sandy hills, or lofty 
cliffs, with rich grassy summits and thick woods, in close vicinity to the 
sea. Besides which, to a very large proportion of our migratory visitants, 
the tidal channels of Breydon, Blakeney, and Lynn present, at low water, 
from their wide extent of mud banks, an inexhaustible supply of food ; and, 
more inland, the shallow waters and reedy margins of the ‘“ Broads,” sur- 
rounded by large tracts of luxuriant marshes, form the natural resort, both 
in winter and summer, of many of the aquatic tribes. To the natural ad- 
vantages, therefore, of the locality itself, the fact, that the number of species 
included in the avi-fauna of Norfolk has increased rather than diminished 
of late years, is mainly attributable. Messrs. Gurney and Fisher, in their 
‘ Account of the Birds found in Norfolk,” published in the “ Zoologist” 
for 1846, give the total number of species at that time as 277; and even 
omitting one or two birds, hitherto included on insufficient authority, the 
total number at the present time amounts to 293. It is, however, in the 
nesting habits of many residents, and the absence during the summer 
months of others, which formerly remained to breed in this county, that we 
really find the changes which have been effected by local causes during the 
last 20 or 30 years. 
Civilization and cultivation go hand-in-hand, and as the necessities of 
our largely-increased population demand still greater exertions to supply the 
required food, the wild denizens of the marsh recede before the rapid in- 
roads of the plough, drainage on all sides narrows their boundaries, and as 
surely as the waving corn crops succeed the feathery reedstems, the call of 
the Partridge takes the place of the Redshank’s whistle and the drumming 
noise of the Snipe. Salt marshes reclaimed, no longer afford feeding 
grounds for the various wild fowl; and the very repairs necessary to 
prevent the encroachments of the sea, are a constant source of disturb- 
