BROWN SNIPE. 349 
learn from Mr. J. H. Gurney that a specimen of the 
red-breasted snipe was killed near Yarmouth early in 
October. Our informant adds that it was a male, and 
had nearly completed its change from summer to the 
winter plumage.” This bird, which was formerly in 
Mr. 8. Miller’s collection at Yarmouth is now in Mr. J. 
H. Gurney’s possession, together with another specimen 
said to have been killed at Runton, near Cromer, in 1840. 
A recent examination, however, of the latter with the 
testimony of the late Mr. John Sayer, of Norwich, who 
stuffed it, leaves no doubt on my mind that it was origi- 
nally set up from a skin, and in that condition, and not 
in the “flesh,” made its first appearance in Norfolk. In 
fact, there appears to be as little authority for this speci- 
men as for the spotted sandpiper before referred to, which 
was said to have been killed at the same place and was 
sold to Mr. Gurney by the same individual. In Mr. 
G. R. Gray’s “Catalogue of British Birds” in the 
British Museum, two specimens are entered as forming 
part of that collection—Colonel Montagu’s in winter 
plumage from Devonshire, and one purchased in 1850, 
marked “ Norfolk, very young, from Mr. J. Baker’s 
collection.” In the absence of any record of this nest- 
ling in our natural history journals (although being in 
immature plumage it would, as a genuine British 
example, have been peculiarly interesting) I am inclined 
to doubt altogether the locality assigned to it. The 
Mr. Baker alluded to is, as I learn from Mr. Gray, “a 
dealer in such articles,” and on such authority alone 
I cannot certainly include it as an authentic local 
specimen. 
The last that I am aware of as killed in this county, 
which is now in Mr. Rising’s collection at Horsey, was 
shot by himself, in his own marshes, on the 9th of 
October, 1845, a male bird, changing from summer to 
winter plumage, and which was in company with another 
