A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Breydon in June, 1877, was bought at Mr. 

 Stevenson's sale for the Norwich Museum, 

 and Dr. Babington mentions having seen 

 another which was shot at Stoke-by-Nayland 

 in 1881. 



145. Glossy Ibis. Plegadis falcinellus (Linn.) 

 Only one bona-fide Suffolk specimen of this 



accidental visitant has been obtained, an adult 

 female shot at Blundeston near Lowestoft in 

 May, 1850 {Birds of Norfolk, ii. 193). 



146. Spoonbill. P lata lea leucorod'ta, IJinn. 



' The platea or shovelard, which build 

 upon the tops of high trees. They formerly 

 built in the heronry at Claxton and Reedham ; 

 now at Trimley, in Suffolk. They come in 

 March, and are shot by fowlers, not for their 

 meat, but for the handsomeness of the same ; 

 remarkable in their white colour, copped 

 crown, and spoon or spatule like bill.' This 

 most interesting note of the Norfolk naturalist 

 Sir Thomas Browne is quoted by the author 

 of the Birds of Norfolk (ii. 184), who assigns 

 to it the date of 1688. The spoonbill is 

 now by no means one of the rarest spring 

 and summer visitants, and its pure white 

 plumage and long legs make it a conspicuous 

 bird. In the ' sixties ' and * seventies ' it was 

 frequently seen about the river and meres 

 near Aldeburgh, and the Hele collection at 

 Ipswich possesses two local specimens. In 

 the Zoologist for 1 90 1 , Mr. Patterson was able 

 to write from Yarmouth : ' Scarcely a day has 

 passed since early April to this day of writing 

 (June 2 1st) but what one or more spoon- 

 bills have been in sight on Breydon. First 

 one was seen on April loth, twelve on April 

 27th, and five more next day — seventeen in 

 all ! Seven observed on May 7 th ; I saw two 

 on May i6th quite near my houseboat, and I 

 sailed up to a couple on May 17th.' No 

 bird has profited more by the watchful over- 

 sight now exercised on Breydon than this, as 

 it can be seen through the watcher's glass a 

 mile or more away. These and other spring 

 visitants probably reach Breydon vii Suffolk. 



147. Grey Lag-Goose, yinser cinereus, Meyer. 

 Though this is the only goose breeding in 

 the British Islands, and the only one known 

 ever to have done so, it is in Suffolk the 

 rarest of the four grey geese and quite an 

 uncommon winter visitant. In September, 

 1870, three frequented the meres near Alde- 

 burgh and associated with the geese kept by 

 the cottagers at Thorpe. One of them was 

 shot and proved to be a very fine old gander 

 slightly marked with black on the under parts 

 (Ipswich Museum). 



148. White-fronted Goose. 

 (Scopoli) 



yinser albifrons 



A rather uncommon winter migrant, 

 though Mr. Hele mentions that in the 

 winter of 1870— I enormous ' skeins ' visited 

 the Aldeburgh neighbourhood. Some of the 

 old birds are very richly marked with black on 

 the breast and belly, and like the grey lag- 

 goose this species has a white nail on the tip 

 of the beak. 



149. Bean-Goose. Jnser segetum (J. F. 

 Gmelin) 



This is the common ' wild goose ' of 

 Suffolk, and a flock seen flying over in west 

 Suffolk during the winter may safely be said 

 to be bean-geese. * On some of the farms 

 near the coast and river at Sudbourne and 

 Gedgrave wild geese came in such numbers 

 to feed on the young growing corn that the 

 farmers had to employ boys to scare them 

 away. One farmer used to have yarn 

 stretched between sticks all over the fields 

 frequented by them. This was probably 

 about sixty years ago and my father recollects 

 it well ' (G. T. Rope). The rearing of 

 geese on a large scale was formerly a recog- 

 nized industry in East Anglia, and in 1902 

 more than a thousand geese brought over 

 from Holland when quite young were turned 

 down on some fields at Tostock, many of 

 which showed plain traces of bean-goose 

 ancestry. 



150. Pink-footed Goose. Anser brachyrhyn- 

 chus, Baillon. 

 Next to the bean-goose, which it resembles 

 in having a black nail on the beak, this is the 

 most common grey goose, being in some 

 years the more abundant of the two. It is 

 of course a winter migrant, and at Aldeburgh 

 has been seen in flocks of eighty or a hun- 

 dred in the marshes south of the town (C. C. 

 Clarke in litt.). 



151. Barnacle-Goose. Bernicla leucopsis (Bech- 



stein) 

 A decidedly rare winter visitant of which 

 two were obtained in the river near Alde- 

 burgh 20 September, 1887 (Hele). This is 

 an unusually early occurrence. 



152. Brent Goose. Bernicla brtnta (Pallas) 

 Locally, Prussian Goose or Brant. 



In hard winters this marine goose is quite 

 abundant, though it is never obtained in the 

 same numbers as in Essex. It has been 

 noticed on migration from the Corton light- 

 ship as early as July (Zoologist, 1880, p. 184). 



198 



