44 BIRDS OF NOEFOLK. 



stubbles, and none of them, as I learn from the Rev. 

 H. H. Lubbock, of Hanworth, are pinioned, unless the 

 keeper by chance finds a nest of young ones. These 

 birds have a regular line of flight to certain favourite 

 localities in the neighbourhood, and as their route is 

 pretty well known they are not unfrequently shot at 

 by gunners, laying wait for them, when beyond their 

 preserved boundaries. On one occasion, when driving 

 in the vicinity of Holt, early in the morning, three 

 Canada geese flew over my head, low enough to have 

 been touched by the whip ; this was in the height of 

 summer, but a fine bird in my own collection was killed 

 out of a flock of three or four at Hickling, in February, 

 1852, by a man *' flight" shooting during very severe 

 weather, and which had no doubt been either frozen, 

 or starved out elsewhere.'^ 



I may here also note the occurrence near Lynn, early 

 in the year, 1850, of a bird supposed to be a specimen 

 of the Spur-winged Goose (Plectropterus gambensisj, 

 but of which I can unfortunately give little further in- 

 formation than is contained in the following memoranda 

 kindly sent me by the Eev. F. L. Currie, at that time 

 residing at Clenchwarton : — " On the 14th of February, 

 1850," he writes, "I heard of a Spur-winged Goose 

 having been procured in this neighbourhood (Lynn) by 

 a poor man who sold it to a Yorkshire skipper, who, in 

 all probability, destroyed it." In Mr. Southwell's notes 

 also is a communication from Mr. E. L. King, of Lynn, 



* The Eev. E, S. Dixon, late rector of Intwood with Keswick, 

 near Norwich, in his useful little work on the "History and 

 management of ornamental and domestic poultry," remarks of 

 this species, that the want of a proper supply of corn in winter 

 when the grass grows but Httle, is the chief cause of their restless- 

 ness. " It is no migratory impulse that sets them on the move, 

 but over-crowding and under-feeding. They have been literally 

 starved out." 



