240 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
probable, also, that two out of the three stations above 
mentioned, from their propinquity to one another, 
consisted, as is the case with our heronries, of small 
branch establishments from one parent colony, and 
that, no doubt, centred at Horsey. 
At Salthouse, long prior to the drainage of the 
marshes and the erection of a raised sea-bank, the 
avocets had become exterminated by the same wanton 
destruction of both birds and eggs as is yearly diminish- 
ing the numbers of lesser terns and ringed plover on the 
adjacent beach. I have conversed with an octogenarian 
fowler and marshman named Piggott, who remembered 
the “clinkers” (as the avocet was there called), 
breeding in the marshes “ by hundreds,” and used con- 
stantly to gather their eggs.* Mr. Dowell, also, was 
informed by the late Harry Overton, a well known 
gunner, in that neighbourhood, that in his young time 
he used to gather the avocet’s eggs, filling his cap, 
coat pockets, and even his stockings; and the poor 
people thereabouts made puddings and pancakes of them. 
The birds were also as recklessly destroyed, for the 
gunners, to unload their punt guns, would sometimes 
fire at and kill ten or twelve at a shot.¢ No wonder, 
then, if the avocets thus constantly persecuted gradually 
became scarce. It is stated, moreover, by Mr. Lubbock 
that their feathers were much sought after to make 
artificial flies. Here as in the previous instances, at 
Horsey and Winterton, it is difficult to fix the exact 
* The egg figured by Hewitson (“Eggs of British Birds,” 
3rd edition, vol. uu.) from the late Mr. Salmon’s collection, “ was 
obtained by him in Norfolk, where he had no doubt it was laid.” 
+ Some of these, probably, found their way into the London 
Market, as Yarrell, speaking of the rarity of the avocet, says, 
“Some years ago I was told that more than twenty specimens 
were received at Leadenhall Market for sale within one month, 
but now scarcely an example appears in a year.” 
