284, BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
ornithological phenomena, an almost unprecedented 
quantity of cocks were killed in the month of December. 
Mr. Alfred Newton, who took some pains at the time 
to ascertain the numbers shot in different localities, 
states (“‘ Zoologist” 1853, p. 3754), that “in the first 
week in December thirty and thirty-three were respec- 
tively killed, on two successive days, at Melton Con- 
stable, near Holt; and on the next day the same 
shooting party bagged ninety-three in the Great Wood 
at Swanton Novers.” He was also informed on good 
authority that “no such number as this last had been 
seen there for twenty years; and further, that at least 
one hundred and ten might have been killed if the 
other game had been disregarded.” These coverts are 
always reckoned as the best in Norfolk for woodcocks, 
but at other likely spots near the coast considerable bags 
were made. At Felbrigg, says Mr. Newton, “twenty- - 
seven, thirty, fifteen, and twenty-one respectively were 
killed on four days in the second and third weeks of 
December ;” and at Holkham “twenty-nine in one 
day about the same time.” Mr. Newton, however, 
gives reasons for believing that in this instance the 
increase was rather local than general, possibly induced 
by the flooded state at the time of a considerable 
portion of the county, and that such was the case 
seems the more likely from the fact that the amount 
killed in some parts of Suffolk, usually considered 
extremely favourable for this species, was far below 
the average. Considering, also, as before stated, that 
many annually resort to the low carrs and planta- 
tions in the neighbourhood of the broads, it is quite 
possible that these, when driven from that district by 
the rising of the waters, collected in large bodies on 
the higher grounds, whilst fresh arrivals on the coast 
had no inducement to disperse themselves further over 
the county. 
