THE BIRDS OF SUFFOLK. 1 5' 



taken from Pennant, Bewick, and Daniel (Rural Sports) 

 respectively*. 



TJntil towards the close of the eighteenth century no 

 great progress had been made in ascertaining the distribu- 

 tion of birds over the various counties of England. Some- 

 thing had indeed been done by Sir Thomas Browne, who 

 died in 1682, in his short Account of Birds found in Nor- 

 folk, which includes a notice of the Spoonbill breeding in 

 Suffolk (Works, iv., 313-334, edited from the Sloane MS., 

 by S. Wilkin, Lond., 1835) ; by Plot in his Natural 

 History of Staffordshire (pp. 229-236, Oxf. 1686, fol.) who 

 incidentally mentions that the Avocet is also found in 

 Suffolk (p. 231) ; and by the same author in his Natural 

 History of Oxfordshire (pp. 179-184, Oxf. 1705, fol. 2nd 

 Ed.); by C. Leigh in his Natural History of Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, and the Peak of Derbyshire (pp. 157-1 64, Oxf. 

 1700, fol.), by Morton in his Natural History of Northamp- 

 tonshire (pp. 423-431, Lond. 1712, fol.), this last 

 being by far the best county list that had as yet 

 appeared ; by Borlase in his Natural Histori/ of Corn- 

 wall (pp. 242-248, Lond. 1758, fol.), by Markwick in 

 a paper entitled Aves Sussexienses read before the Linnean 

 Society of London in 1795, and published in the fourth 



* Later editions of this Dictionary have 1794-1818. in ten vols., 8vo.) records 



hf-en published by Prof. Rennie (Lond. (from Latham) two Hoopoes shot at 



1831), in which he incorporates a great Orford, and from the same writer a 



deal of new matter from various sources, Merganser shot on the coast of Suffolk, 



besides an original introduction of nearly He also calls the Avocet, " common in 



sixty pages, and Mr. E. Newman (Lond. winter on th* coast of Suffolk." Hunt, 



1866) in which he includes the additional in his unfinished work, entitled British 



species described by Selby, Yarrell, and Ornithology (Norwich, 1815, in three vols., 



others. I am not concerned to notice 8vo.) mentions several Suffolk birds, viz., 



these farther. a Peregrine Falcon and a little Auk, 



Pennant, Bewick, and Montagu are both of them shot at Beccles, an Ice- 



the only early writers on British Birds land Falcon taken at Bungay, a Roller 



whom I have thought it necessary to also obtained at Bungay, and an Oriole 



mention in the text, but, among other from Saxmundham. He was an engraver 



hooks of the same kind, the three follow- and bird preserver, living at Norwich, 



ing may be briefly alluded to here: — and had his work been completed it might 



Lewin's Birds of Great Britain (Lond. probably have furnished considerably 



1789-95, in seven vols., 4to.) mentions more information about Suffolk birds, 



under Bough-legged Falcon that the He availed himself of the assistance of 



specimen which he figures was shot in Mr. Seaman, an Ipswich taxidermist. 

 Suffolk. Donovan's British Birds (Lond. 



