54 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



during the last few years in East Norfolk, this species 

 would seem, at the present time, to be confined almost 

 entirely to the wild hilly country lying to the westward 

 of Cromer, within the " Cliff" district, and that still 

 extensive, though not continuous, line of heaths and 

 common lands, which, commencing about Rackheath, 

 Household and Thorpe, to the north of this city, 

 proceeds in a north-westerly direction till it joins on to 

 the former tract again about Hempstead and Holt. Here, 

 and more particularly at Hempstead, as my friend Mr. 

 Edwards informs me, they were extremely numerous 

 some thirty years ago, when a large extent of young 

 plantations afforded both food and shelter* amongst the 

 young trees, and whence these birds might be flushed in 

 flocks of from forty to fifty at a time at the close of the 

 breeding season. Although difficult enough of approach 

 in their usually open haunts, it was easy enough under 

 these circumstances, to obtain shots at them, by sending 

 one gun forward to the end of the planting, and many 

 were, no doubt, killed in this manner when little thought 

 was given to their eventual scarcity. The system of 

 egging, also, as then pursued, could not fail in some 

 degree to show its effects, but the gradual though 



* Mr. Lubbock particularly mentions the partiality of this 

 species for recently formed coverts, remarking that " the greatest 

 allurement to them is an extensive new plantation made in the 

 open country, and on the improved plan of double trenching 

 the soil. The loosened ground affords better means of obtaining 

 worms and beetles, their usual food, and the birds appear par- 

 ticularly to delight in the partial concealment which the young 

 trees afford in the first year or two ; as soon as the trees attain any 

 size all attraction ceases." In the spring of 1867, when driving 

 with Mr. Anthony Hamond, jun., through a roadway dividing 

 a recently formed plantation, adjoining Mr. Elwes's residence at 

 Congham, we disturbed a pair of these birds, which ran on for 

 some distance, but at last rose and alighted again amongst the 

 dwarf fir-trees. 



