230 BIRDS OF NORFOLK, 



speaks of tlie male in full plumage as rare. The brothers 

 Paget state that it is "occasionally here in severe 

 winters," and Mr. Lubbock also mentions it as rare in 

 perfect plumage. An entry in the Hooker MS. states 

 that two specimens of the goosander were " taken alive 

 by a fishing boat off the coast, December 29th, 1830, 

 very savage, attacking spontaneously the men that had 

 them, and lacerating extremely their fiugers by their 

 bites." In the winter of 1838 this species is said to 

 have been plentiful, when adult males were killed at 

 Heigham and Costessey, near Norwich. A fine old 

 male was killed at Yarmouth on 27th January, 1854, 

 and six others at different parts of the county, in the 

 winter of 1855, together with several females and young 

 birds. These adult birds were in perfect plumage, and 

 when first shot had, as is usual with this species, the 

 most delicate salmon colour on the under parts, which, 

 however, soon disaj)peared after death. Mr. Stevenson 

 states that he has observed this tint in some immature 

 birds, young males, according to Macgillivray, in their 

 second year, still resembling the female, " with the 

 exception of having the breast of a beautiful pink buff, 

 as in the adult." Some of the examples above men- 

 tioned were killed as late as the 13 th March, when the 

 weather had become quite mild and open, but it is not 

 unusual with the duck tribe, after a severe winter, for 

 the adult birds to be met with on their return north- 

 ward late in the following spring. In February, 1856, 

 an old male was shot on the river Yare, near Trowse, 

 and some ten or twelve females and young birds, but 

 in the extremely sharp winter of 1860-1 only two old 

 males occurred. Mr. Gurney has a female which was 

 shot at Hellesdon out of a flock of three, on the 9th 

 January, 1864. Many were shot in the severe snowy 

 weather in January and February, 1867, and one or two 

 in the autumn of the same year. In 1870 an adult male 

 was shot at Stalham in February, and females and young 

 birds were not uncommon in the severe frost which 

 then prevailed. A fine pair were shot on Gunton lake 

 on the 7th March, and two females on the 20th of the 

 same month. In 1871, between January and the 11th 

 of March, many were killed ; in the former month a 



