586 AETHYIA FERINA. 
[§ 5727. One.—Stanford, Norfolk, 29 May, 1876. “A. N.” . 
This nest had been found some time before my visit by the men who were 
cutting sedge at the upper end of the water, and close to the boarded platform 
that Lord Walsingham has built for duck-shooting. The water was nearly 
up to the crotch, so that I did not care to wade, for the sake of looking into 
a nest that plenty of people had before handled ; but I saw the outside of it 
and the man go to it and take out this egg, I being not ten yards off. The 
men said the bird was sitting, and would return when they went away, and 
they seem to have been right, for Lord Walsingham afterwards wrote to me 
that. she took off five young, leaving a rotten egg in the nest; but at the time 
I thought the nest was deserted, and this egg, when I came to blow it, was 
stale. Not very far from the same place we found an old Dunbird with a 
brood that looked as if they were some days old. They were close under us 
as we stood on the platform, and they swam across a bay of open water, and 
were lost in the sedge and flags on the other side. A little while after, when 
we were in the boat, we saw near the same place a brood and their mother, 
whether the same brood we had before seen I do not know. On the water 
were eight species of Ducks, beside a pair of Swans and their cygnets—Wild 
Duck, Shoveler (abundant), Wigeon (a drake only, which I think had been 
wounded), a pair and a half of Gadwalls, one pair of Garganeys, several Tufted 
Ducks, many male Pochards, and some Teal,—altogether a charming and 
almost matchless sight, which my two companions (Lord Walsingham and 
Mr. Upcher) enjoyed, I am sure, as much as I did.]} 
[§ 5728. One.—Tomston, Norfolk, 30 May, 186, “FANG 
Lord Walsingham drove Mr. Upcher and me to Tomston Water. Here we 
met the gamekeeper and another man. They knew of a Dunbird’s nest and 
took us to it. We got within three yards of her without disturbing her, and 
then all five of us sat down for some minutes, not ten yards.off, looking at the 
fowl, of which there were not many, on the water. This nest was on the edge 
of a grassy point, with a few shrubs of alder and willow about it; but we 
could see her distinctly and we left her unmolested. Then Lord Walsingham 
went to look at a little detached pool, on which was a brood of Pochards, but 
I did not go to it. Presently a boat was sent for, and we went across to 
another Pochard’s nest on the east side, which had been hatched off. There 
was an addled egg, which I saw lying close to it. Whether one of the men 
had taken it out the day before and left it there, or how it got into its position, 
I do not know—but there it was. Afterwards we saw another brood of Pochards 
on the water, and a pair of Great Crested Grebes, whose nest we found with 
four eggs, just where the nest was in 1878 (§ 5045). We thought we saw a 
Gadwall, but I could not be sure of it. Then we parted company—Mr. Upcher 
to drive home, and Lord Walsingham and I to Stow-Bedon, where, while 
waiting for the train, I found a colony of Rana esculenta, one of which he 
caught and sent to the Norwich Museum (cf. Zool. 1877, p. 61, and Trans. 
Norf. & Norw. Nat. Soc. ii. pp. 254 257).] 
