160 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



January, 1870; and an adult male at Hunstanton, 

 during the severe frost that prevailed in February, 

 1871 ;* but from the fact that for more than twenty 

 years a naturalized race of gadwalls the descendants 

 of a pair of wild birds taken in a decoy and turned 

 off, when pinioned, on the lake at Narford have bred 

 regularly and numerously in the neighbourhood, it 

 is impossible, at least on that side of the county, to 

 determine true migrants from those reared in that part 

 of Norfolk. 



For the history of these Norfolk gadwalls, I am 

 indebted to the Rev. John Fouiitaine, of Southacre, who 

 informs me that, so far as his memory serves him, the 

 original pair were taken, about five-and-twenty years 

 ago, in Dersingham decoy (near Lynn), and were given 

 to him by George Skelton, who made and resided at 

 that decoy, which is now destroyed. He says, "I cut 

 a very small portion off the pinions of these two birds, 

 so that they were able to fly for a considerable time, but 

 no doubt dared not trust themselves to the regular 

 spring flight of migration when the other fowl left ; the 

 result was that they bred upon the lake at Narford, and 

 their progeny have continued to do so ever since. The 

 greatest number I ever counted in any one year was 

 seventy, but of course their numbers were much reduced 

 by shooting in the neighbourhood, or there would have 

 been many more. This, in a thickly populated country 

 like England, renders the introduction of wild species 

 almost impossible." 



That many of these ducks, as Mr. Fountaine states, 



* Mr. Baker, of Cambridge, in some notes on Norfolk birds sent 

 to him for preservation, mentions a mature male and two female 

 gadvralls, shot at Littleport, March 5th, 18G5, but this locality is 

 in the Isle of Ely beyond the western limits of our *' Fen" district. 



