342 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



and adjacent meadows in company with the house- 

 martin and still scarcer swallow, or rest by hundreds 

 on the telegraph wires, wherever commercial enterprise 

 may have brought those convenient perches near enough 

 to their usual haunts. 



A high gravelly bank at the back of the Brundall 

 station, on the Yarmouth line, has been for years 

 a very favourite resort, and the chief home of those 

 large nights met with, throughout the summer, on 

 Surlingham and Rockland Broads; but, in all my 

 visits to that district, I never remember to have seen 

 them in such prodigious quantities as in the month of 

 July, 1864. I was returning from Lowestoft, by train, 

 on the 23rd, and, waiting for the Norwich train to 

 pass, was detained several minutes at the Brundall 

 station. As we came to a stand still close to their 

 nesting place, I observed the sand-martins clusiering 

 like bees on the wires, many hundreds together 

 sitting closely in rows, and these, when disturbed 

 by the noise of the engine, rose in one dense mass, 

 and flew round and round, apparently joined by as 

 many more, and all at length settled in one thick 

 cloud in a ploughed field close to the line. Most 

 of them from their actions appeared to be feeding, 

 some hovering up now and then and alighting again, 

 but on the least alarm all rose together on the wing, 

 and, drifting over the train in immense swarms, produced 

 an effect as singular as it was beautiful, and one which 

 I certainly never witnessed before upon so large a 

 scale. A gun fired into their midst as they sprang 

 from the ground, must inevitably have killed hundreds 

 at one discharge, whilst their numbers, without the 

 least exaggeration, could be only computed by thousands. 

 Perfectly white and other varieties have been killed 

 at times in this county ; a light cream-coloured speci- 

 men was shot at Eaton, near Norwich, in July, 1861, 



