COMMON REDSHANK. 



common and lesser tern ; but, at the present time, 

 this species is but thinly scattered along our coast 

 line, a pair here and there remaining to rear their 

 young if happily located on preserved ground, and even 

 in the most favourable portions of the broads its 

 numbers are few indeed in comparison with former 

 times. I am happy to state, however, that since the 

 spring of 1865, from some cause for which I am 

 quite unable to account, I have heard of more nests at 

 Hickling and Horsey, near Yarmouth, and amongst 

 that network of smaller broads that border on the 

 Bure and the Ant, than have been known, even in 

 such tempting spots, for some years. At Hoveton, in 

 1867, I had the pleasure of seeing several pairs on 

 the wing, mingling their shrill notes with the wail of 

 the lapwings, as I searched for their nests in the rough 

 marshes, but here protection is afforded to both parents 

 and eggs, and the owner of this birds' paradise, as a 

 keen naturalist, is more than repaid for his hospitality. 

 During the same summer, also, and again in 1868, in 

 sailing from Norwich to Yarmouth, I was agreeably 

 surprised to hear the notes of these birds, and watch 

 them on the wing at many points of the river, a fact 

 sufficiently unusual now-a-days, in that neighbourhood, 

 to be remarked by the reed-cutters and watermen on the 

 river. On the western side of the county* they still 

 breed regularly on East Walton common, near West- 

 acre, one of the few "wet" commons remaining in 

 Norfolk, and in this unlocked for swamp, bordering 

 upon the old bustard country, I saw some five or six 

 pairs in May, 1867, and learned from Mr. Hamond's 

 keeper that they were even more plentiful during the 

 previous summer. 



* Mr. Southwell obtained some nests in this district in 1854 ; 

 and Mr. A. Newton tells me that the late Mr. Selby's collection 

 contains specimens taken at Didlington, in 1856. 

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