416 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



beach, there seems nothing to account for such marine 

 excursions in the spring of the year but some such 

 voluntary impulse as I have here suggested. Again, 

 these returned voyagers, failing in their attempt to 

 emigrate from their island home, would locate them- 

 selves, in all probability, in the vicinity of the coast, and 

 thus account for the large proportion of the red-legs 

 which, as Mr. Barclay remarks, are known to breed 

 by the sea at Cromer and adjoining villages ; whilst a 

 more than usual movement from the interior, in any 

 particular spring, would in like manner account for the 

 remark of Mr. Birkbeck's keeper " that more had come 

 over than usual." 



It is not unusual to find the feet of these partridges 

 much clogged with dirt after continued wet on the heavy 

 land farms, but the most extraordinary instance of this 

 I ever met with, came under my notice on the 3rd of 

 December, 1860, and consisted of a French partridge's* 

 foot and leg, perfectly embedded in a lump of earth. 

 The poor bird had been observed limping about in a 

 very strange manner, and was, without much difficulty, 

 run down and secured, when it was found that the 

 lower half of one leg, with the foot, was embedded 

 in a mass of earth, which raised it considerably from 

 the ground, and necessarily kept the limb in a bent 

 position. This lump, measuring seven and a-half inches 

 in circumference, and weighing six ounces and three- 

 quarters, had become as hard as stone, and certainly 

 in that state accounted for the sufferer not having 

 been able to free itself from its incumbrance. Two 

 toes only were visible on one side, of which one 



* This curious specimen was brought to Mr. Sayer, bird-stuffer, 

 St. Giles', in this city, by a gentleman who resides on a heavy land 

 Suffolk farm, where the bird had been taken, and when shown to 

 me the leg, from the fresh state of the sinews, had evidently been 

 but recently severed from the body. 



