BLACK STORK. 183 



letter from Mr. Anthony Hamond, jun., informing me 

 that a fine black stork had been shot by one of the 

 gamekeepers in some meadows on the banks of the 

 river N"ar, at Westacre, about half-past four in the 

 morning of the 19th.* The bird, it seems, had been 

 observed about the same locality on several occasions 

 for more than a week, but had hitherto kept well out 

 of shot, and only on the day previous to its death, 

 Mr. Hamond and myself had been watching a pair of 

 gadwalls in the Nar, scarcely a quarter of a mile from 

 the spot where the stork was killed. It proved on 

 dissection to be an adult female, weighing over seven 

 pounds, and measured, I am told, six feet two inches 

 from tip to tip of wings. Its plumage showed no signs 

 of having been in confinement, and, owing to its extreme 

 shyness, it was even at last obtained with much diffi- 

 culty. This noble specimen now forms part of the fine 

 collection of birds at Westacre High-house. 



Although the first time that this species has been 

 known to be killed in this county, it is probable that 

 others may have visited our coast, and either escaped 

 injury or passed wholly unnoticed. Thus, in Mr. 

 Joseph Clarke's MS. notes on rare birds at Yarmouth 

 and other parts of the county, I find the following 

 under the head of Ciconia nigra, " Three were followed 

 in Norfolk for some days in the year 1823; and in 

 1832 one was killed in Suffolk, at Grundisburgh, and 

 was in the possession of a surgeon, a Mr. Ditton, of 

 that place." The latter is no doubt the bird mentioned 

 by Yarrell as killed at Otley, near Ipswich. 



* This bird was recorded at the time in the "Ibis," 1867, p. 

 382 ; " Zoologist," s. s., p. 872 ; and in " Land and Water," vol. iv., 

 p. 26. 



