4 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



" not unfrequent in the champian and fieldy part of the 

 county ; " an expression which rather conveys the idea 

 that they were not particularly numerous even at that 

 period, and as, unfortunately, we possess no further 

 notes of its existence in these parts for the next hundred 

 years at least, we come at once to the commencement 

 of the present century, when the gradual but inevitable 

 extinction of the species forms the burthen of the story 

 of each successive writer. "These noble birds," wrote 

 Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear, in 1825,* "still continue 

 to breed in the open parts of Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 though they are become much scarcer than formerly. 

 The places most frequented by them are Westacre, in 

 the former county, and Icklingham, in the latter. 

 At both places they are carefully preserved by the 

 proprietors. In the summer of 1819, nineteen of them 

 were observed together at Westacre." From that 

 time, however, they appear to have gradually but surely 

 decreased in both counties, it being a rare event to see 



of Surgeons of London, was exhibited in 1865, by Mr. W. H. 

 Flower, at a meeting of the Zoological Society. The second 

 is in the University Museum at Cambridge. Dr. Cullen seems 

 inclined to believe that this singular structure is a seasonal 

 peculiarity in adult males only, and is by no means intended to 

 contain water as formerly supposed, but is simply an air bag, 

 connected, probably, with a strange sound emitted by the cock 

 birds in the breeding season, but not heard at any other time. For 

 a complete history to that date of the "gular pouch" controversy, 

 see a paper by Mr. A. Newton in the " Ibis" for 1862 (vol. iv., 

 p. 107). See also the " Proceedings of the Zoological Society" for 

 1865, p. 747, " Zoologist " for 1863, p. 8556; and 1866, pp. 144 and 

 189; "Field," December 16th, 1865; and March 24th, 1866. 



* Mr. Newton considers 1825 to be the date of the last Yorkshire 

 nest, and 1826 of the last specimen ; and it is probable that the 

 race became extinct in Lincolnshire about the same time. Else- 

 where in England it had been for some years exterminated, in 

 Wiltshire probably prior to 1820. 



