238 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



the only breeding stations of which we have any record, 

 are Winterton and Horsey, and a spot near the Seven- 

 mile House, on the Bare or North River, all in the 

 neighbourhood of Yarmouth, as ^\ell as the far-famed 

 Salthouse marshes, near Blakeney, their last haunt hi 

 the Eastern Counties.* Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear, 

 from their own observations, wrote in 1824 that " during 

 the breeding season the avocet used to frequent the 

 marshes at Winterton ; and in the summer of 1816 we 

 saw one there which had young ;" so that its extinction 

 in that locality, if not actually effected in that year, 

 most probably occurred very shortly after. 



At Horsey, as Mr. Rising informs me, they continued 

 to breed certainly as late as 1819, and probably a year 

 or so longer, but after that time "when the marsh 

 grounds, which had been enclosed, were either converted 

 into arable or were more or less frequented by men and 

 cattle, the birds forsook their haunts, and they were 

 lost to us altogether." Their nests were placed in the 

 lower parts of the marshes, adjoining the warren, over 

 which the sea had been, and which "retained more or 

 less of the salt left thereby, and where samphire used 

 to grow." A few visited Horsey in the summer of 1824, 

 but did not remain to breed ; and since that date Mr. 

 Eising cannot remember having seen above half a dozen 

 specimens, and those merely stragglers on their migra- 

 tory course. Of the condition of this wild district, prior 

 to the changes effected through embankment and drain- 

 age by the late and present owner of the estate, the late 

 Mr. C. S. Girdlestone, of Yarmouth, thus wrote to Mr. 



* Pennant says " we have seen them in considerable numbers 

 in the breeding season, near Fossdyke Wash, in Lincolnshire ;" and 

 in the history of that county, in Gough's edition of Camden's 

 " Brittannia," I find the following passage " Opposite Forsdyke 

 Wash, during summer, are vast numbers of avocettas, called there 

 ' yelpers ' from their cry." 



