COLLARED PRATINCOLE. 65 



wall, and the same birds, in Sir William Hooker's MS., 

 are stated to have been male and female, and their 

 stomachs filled with beetles. These specimens, as I am 

 also informed by Mr. Joseph Clarke, of Saffron Walden 

 (from whom Yarrell obtained his information respecting 

 them), were shot, on the 21st of May, by a fisherman 

 named John Bessey, who sold them to the late Isaac 

 Harvey, a game dealer, at Yarmouth, for twenty 

 shillings. They were extremely dirty and smeared 

 with blood, and Harvey's wife washed them "as she 

 would stockings," and hung them out on a pole to dry ; 

 but, in spite of this rough usage, they were subsequently 

 re-sold by Harvey for 7. Captain Longe, when re- 

 siding at Yarmouth, took some pains to trace out this 

 pair, but was unable to do so, nor have I been more 

 fortunate through enquiries made in other quarters.* 

 A specimen in Mr. Gurney's collection, said to have 

 been killed near Yarmouth, was purchased some years 

 back at the sale of Mr. Thurtell's birds, at Eaton, 

 near Norwich ; and of these, as I have recently ascer- 

 tained from Mr. Hunt, a cashier in the Norwich Post- 

 office, the larger portion had belonged to his father, 

 whose name I have had frequent occasion to mention 

 as an authority on questions of local ornithology. 

 It is quite possible, therefore, that Mr. Gurney's bird 

 may have been one of the original Yarmouth pair, 

 which are also recorded by Hunt in his " List of Birds" 

 published in Stacy's "History of Norfolk." The only 

 other example, and also the last that I am aware of, as 

 having been killed in this county, is the one recorded 

 by Yarrell as shot in May, 1840, on the shore of 

 Blakeney harbour, by Henry Overton, a noted fowler. 



* Bessey's son remembers their being killed, and thinks they 

 may have been purchased either by the late Mr. Sparshall, of 

 Norwich, or Sir E. Adair's father. 



K 



