214 BIKDS OP NORFOLK. 



thej were resting on their northerly migration, upon 

 which occasion they more frequently cross the land 

 than in their southerly autumnal movements." On the 

 10th of May, 1849, Mr. Blofeld saw a male tufted duck, 

 on Wroxham Broad, in company with a male pochard. 

 Mr. Frank Norgate tells me he has several times seen 

 small black and white ducks in April and May flying 

 about in and out the reeds in the Norfolk Broads as if 

 they were at home ; and, although he has never had the 

 opportanity and sufficient time for proving this, he feels 

 certain they were tufted ducks, and that they nest there 

 regularly. 



It thus seems probable that the tufted duck has 

 habitually nested in this county in small numbers, 

 although it has generally escaped detection until re- 

 cently, and that it only required the protection now 

 accorded to this and other species, to induce it to make 

 its home here in rather considerable numbers ; but, like 

 the pochard, and in a less degree the shoveler, it is on 

 the inland waters, in South-west Norfolk, that we shall 

 find it most numerous. 



Lord Walsingham cannot speak with certainty as to 

 the breeding of this species on his estate earlier than 

 the year 1873, although he believes they bred there 

 before 1871 ; in the former year, however, he saw the 

 nest and fiushed the bird from it. On June 8th, 1875, 

 Mr. Stevenson and Mr. H. M. Upcher saw three pairs 

 of tufted ducks on one of Lord Walsingham's meres, 

 but, although no doubt existed as to their having nests, 

 they were not successful in finding them. On the 26th 

 May, 1876, Lord Walsingham, with Professor Newton, 

 flushed a tufted duck from her nest in the same mere, 

 in which were six eggs, and, at the same time and place, 

 they saw two males and four females of this species. 

 The breeding of the tufted duck on this estate has now 

 become a regular occurrence, and both the numbers and 

 the area over which they have spread appear to have 

 increased annually ; so that in the past season of 1889 

 Lord Walsingham tells me he believes not less than 

 thii'ty or forty pairs have bred on Stanford mere, and 

 a considerable number on Tomston, a few miles off. 

 The proportion of tufted ducks to pochards in the 



