AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 179 



I found that they spoke of the present species as 

 " Pheasant Teal." I do not think that the Pintail 

 has ever been abundant in our district dimng the 

 last fifty years, as I only once met with it in my 

 wild-fowling days near Lilford. The first record of 

 its occurrence in that neighbourhood that I find in 

 my journals is that of a pair reported to me by 

 the Rev. F. M. Stopford, who noticed them near 

 Tichmarsh on December 28, 1875 ; I find no other 

 record till November 3, 1885, when my falconer 

 wrote informing me that our aviary-pond was 

 haunted by a female Pintail that was becoming quite 

 tame, and was joined by a male on December 4 ; 

 these two birds remained about our ponds till driven 

 away by the severe frosts of the following month. 



Captain J. A. M. Vipan informed me by letter that 

 there were a fair number of Pintails on the Wash 

 near Sutton Bridge at the latter end of January 1887. 

 Our decoyman, in writing to me on March 4, 1887, 

 told me that there was a male Pintail on the decoy, 

 adding, in a letter dated 10th, " the Pintail has took 

 to a Wild Duck " ; on the 17th he wrote " the Pintail 

 and Duck keep together as usual " ; but on April 1st 

 he informed me that the former left the decoy on 

 March 25 and had not returned. Four of this 

 species were seen by several persons on the flooded 

 meadows near Lilford in the first week of March, 



1888, and one or two, probably of this lot, dropped 

 into the decoy and upon our home-ponds at this 

 time, but had all moved on before March 10. A 

 female Pintail was taken, with a few Teal, on our 

 decoy on November 20, 1888, and a young male 

 caught there with nine Mallard on December 19, 



1889, and now alive on our park-pond at Lilford, 



n2 



