158 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



portion of the fowl, taken on our coast, is sent by rail 

 to London, where, as well as at Brighton, the demand 

 is greater; and Norfolk rarities, when the dealers' 

 statements can be relied on, are quite as likely to be 

 met with in Leadenhall Market as at Norwich or Lynn. 

 Nearly all that I have seen of late years have been in 

 our birdstuffers' hands, and occasionally a season or 

 two passes over without a single specimen being thus 

 noticed. The Messrs. Paget, writing in 1834, remark 

 that "two or three are generally shot every year on 

 Breydon ;" and still earlier records prove their partiality 

 then, as at the present time, for the fresh waters of 

 the more inland broads. The specimens from which 

 Hunt's drawings ("Brit. Ornithology," vol. ii.), were 

 made, were killed at Ormesby in April, 1818 ; and a 

 pair which I purchased at the sale of the late Mr. 

 Spalding's collection at Westleton, in 1872, were bought 

 by him, in the flesh, at Yarmouth, about fifty years ago. 

 Mr. Lubbock, who received an adult male from Button, 

 in January, 1832, also records three as taken with 

 other fowl in Ran worth decoy in the winter of 1841. 



Of some five and twenty examples of this duck that 

 have come under my notice since 1851,* two-thirds, 

 at least, have occurred on the Yarmouth side of the 

 county, Hickling and Ludham Broads (the latter now 

 grown up), next to the tidal waters of Breydon, having 

 afforded apparently the chief attractions ; whilst occa- 

 sional stragglers have been met with very far inland. 

 In January, 1852, an adult male was shot on the river 

 at Heigham, near Norwich ; another in February of the 

 the same year on Lord Kimberley's lake, near Wymond- 



* Mr. Cordeaux describes it as one of the rarest ducks in the 

 Humber district, and states that only twenty-two are recorded in the 

 Ashby decoy book as taken " between the winters of 1833-34 and 

 1867-68 inclusive, three being the largest number in any one year." 



