A, BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
“not unfrequent in the champian and fieldy part of the 
county ;*’ an expression which rather conveys the idea 
that they were not particularly numerous even at that 
period, and as, unfortunately, we possess no further 
notes of its existence in these parts for the next hundred 
years at least, we come at once to the commencement 
of the present century, when the gradual but inevitable 
extinction of the species forms the burthen of the story 
of each successive writer, ‘These noble birds,’ wrote 
Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear, in 1825,* “still continue 
to breed in the open parts of Norfolk and Suffolk, 
though they are become much scarcer than formerly. 
The places most frequented by them are Westacre, in 
the former county, and Icklingham, in the latter. 
At both places they are carefully preserved by the 
proprietors. In the summer of 1819, nineteen of them 
were observed together at Westacre.”’ From that 
time, however, they appear to have gradually but surely 
decreased in both counties, it being a rare event to see 
of Surgeons of London, was exhibited in 1865, by Mr. W. H. 
Flower, at a meeting of the Zoological Society. The second 
is in the University Museum at Cambridge. Dr. Cullen seems 
inclined to believe that this singular structure is a seasonal 
peculiarity in adult males only, and is by no means intended to 
contain water as formerly supposed, but is simply an air bag, 
connected, probably, with a strange sound emitted by the cock 
birds in the breeding season, but not heard at any other time. For 
a complete history to that date of the “gular pouch” controversy, 
see a paper by Mr. A. Newton in the “Ibis” for 1862 (vol. iv., 
p- 107). See also the “ Proceedings of the Zoological Society” for 
1865, p. 747, “ Zoologist ” for 1863, p. 8556; and 1866, pp. 144 and 
189; “* Field,’ December 16th, 1865; and March 24th, 1866. 
* Mr. Newton considers 1825 to be the date of the last Yorkshire 
nest, and 1826 of the last specimen; and it is probable that the 
race became extinct in Lincolnshire about the same time. EHlse- 
where in England it had been for some years exterminated, in 
Wiltshire probably prior to 1820. 
