56 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
same year, a female was shot at Rackheath; and in 
September a male at Hast Tuddenham; and on the 
11th of October I was shown one said to have been 
run down in the vicinity of Norwich, which, most pro- 
bably, came from Thorpe, as, on the 2nd of August, 
1866, a specimen was also killed near this city, and one 
in the following month on the Rackheath estate, 
Mr. Charles Jecks, of the Woodlands, Thorpe, 
informs me that for more than twenty years he has 
known a pair or two return in the spring to the same 
portions of that elevated plateau, where the stony soil is 
well suited to their habits. For several seasons they have 
bred, by the side of a plantation, within two hundred 
yards of his house, and having a naturalist’s relish for 
their wild musical “clamour” at night, he takes every 
precaution to prevent their being disturbed. In the 
summer of 1866, young ones were hatched early in May, 
but as soon as these are able to fly, old and young 
together quit that neighbourhood, and, wandering in 
search of food beyond those friendly boundaries, too 
often lose one or more of their party, by a chance shot, 
before the time for migration arrives. Any how their 
numbers have never increased. 
Mr. Lubbock, in a recent letter from Eccles, near 
Attleburgh, says, “In my vicinity the great-plover is 
following the bustard. ‘Twenty years back I could hear 
them every summer evening from my parlour when the 
window was open. I have seen only one in the parish 
for the last four years.” Passing, on, however, further 
to the south and west of the county, we come at once to 
the “Breck” district, which from time immemorial 
has been their chief resort, and where in many places 
they still remain plentiful, although elsewhere agricul- 
tural and other changes have had their effects. The 
latter is more particularly observable in the neigh- 
bourhood of Swaffham, where of late years they 
