204 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Scoulton." The person referred to as the " accurate ob- 

 server," is not unlikely to have been the late Mr. Blofeld, 

 of Hoveton, whose old marshman, William Hewitt, told 

 me that he had shot many "red-head" flappers at 

 Scoulton with his master. Sheppard and Whitear also 

 speak of this bird nesting at Scoulton ; it has, however, 

 long ceased to do so. A note in Salmon's diary, March, 

 1836, is to the effect that he was told by Mr. Carter, who 

 gathered the gulls' eggs at Stanford, that the pochard 

 always bred there. Lubbock quotes from his friend 

 Girdlestone's memoranda as follows : " Upon Hickling 

 Broad, August 16th, 1827, I found four pochards, three 

 of which I shot. They turned out to be all young fowl, 

 no doubt bred somewhere in the vicinity. On June 3rd, 

 1847, Mr. W. F. Bird records (Zool., 1847, p. 1782) a 

 pochard shot at Tunstall, which he thinks had a nest. 

 In Mr. Blofeld's copy of " Yarrell " are entries of a male 

 pochard seen by him at Wroxham on 10th May, 1849, 

 and a pair by W. Hewitt on Hoveton Broad on 20th 

 July, 1868. Mr. Stevenson (Zool., 1885, p. 327) records 

 three killed on Breydon in July, 1883. 



But it is only in recent years that this species seems 

 to have made its appearance in not inconsiderable num- 

 bers at the breeding season, and although doubtless a few 

 pairs breed annually in various localities in the Broad 

 district, it is in the neighbourhood of Stanford, where 

 Salmon speaks of their breeding in 1836, that we must 

 seek their present headquarters. 



On May 30th, June 1st, and June 10th, 1850, Professor 

 Newton and his brother saw a male pochard on a mere on 

 Wretham Heath, and the former remarks in a letter to 

 Mr. Stevenson : " He was always on the same mere, 

 and seemed perfectly at his ease, just indeed as a drake 

 invariably does when he knows his wife to be comfortably 

 sitting on her nest, as I strongly suspect was the case 

 in this instance." Lord Walsingham, also, in a letter to 

 Mr. Stevenson, dated 24th March, 1875, observes, " Po- 

 chards certainly bred [on his estate] three years ago, 

 for my keeper there knows the birds well, and assured 

 me he saw the nest." On the 25th May, 1874, I saw a 

 number of ducks sunning themselves on the sandy margin 

 of a piece of water in the south-western portion of the 



