224 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



MERGrUS ALBELLUS (Linnaeus). 

 SMEW. 



Immature specimens of this beautiful bird are ob- 

 tained nearly every winter, and in some seasons are even 

 tolerably numerous, but, in the fully adult plumage, 

 it is of much less frequent occurrence. Old males 

 in their lovely white plumage are somewhat inappro- 

 priately (so far as sex is concerned) known as " Nuns,"* 

 and are very rarely met with till the months of January 

 and February. A male killed on Breydon, on January 

 15th, 1881, Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., tells me had two- 

 thirds assumed the adult plumage. It would be impos- 

 sible to give a list of the numerous instances in which 

 adult smews have been killed in this county. I shall, 

 therefore, only mention some occasions on which they 

 were unusually abundant. Messrs. Sheppard and Whit- 

 ear state they were plentiful in the winter of 1819-20 at 

 Yarmouth. Several were killed in the cold spring of 

 1855 ; four adult males were shot at Burgh near 

 Yarmouth, Hockland, and other parts of the countv, 

 also several females and young birds. One old male, in 

 the collection of Mr. J. H. Ghirney, jun., was shot at 

 Burgh, in February, 1860 ; and the following spring of 

 1861, during the intense cold which prevailed at that time, 

 a very unusual number of smews, both adult and imma- 

 ture, says Mr. Stevenson, appeared on our coast ; a fine 

 old male, in his own collection, was shot at Surlingham, 

 on the 25th January of that year, in company with 

 another male and a female ; and Mr. Ellis, bird stuffer, 

 of Swaff ham, received three in perfect plumage, together 

 with twelve or thirteen females and young birds, killed 

 in January and February, in the neighbourhood of 

 Lynn. In 1867-8 old females and young birds were 



This, however, seems to be a name at least as old as, if not 

 older, than smew. Merrett (" Pinax," p. 183) has " Non est avis 

 aquatica .... caput cristatum unde forsan ei nomen, sc. a 

 monacha velata " ; and Willughby's translator says of the bird 

 (" Ornithology," p. 337), "We may call it, with the Germans, the 

 White Nun." He adds that a female " was sent to us by Mr. Dent, 

 from Cambridge, by the name of a Smew." 



