236 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



respectful distance may be watched for any length of 

 time diving after their food or preening their glossy 

 feathers, the rich chestnut crest of the old birds glisten- 

 ing in the sun as they shake the moisture from their 

 silky plumage. The eggs, which are usually laid in 

 April, are of an extremely chalky texture externally, and, 

 though naturally white in colour, are often much stained 

 by contact with the moist materials of the nest. This 

 structure is thus accurately described by Mr. Lubbock in 

 a communication to Mr. Hewitson, ' British Birds' 

 Eggs ' (3rd edit., ii., p. 441) : * < Great portion of the 

 nest is under water ; that which is above is conical in some 

 degree, and on the top, in a slight cavity, are deposited 

 the eggs, of a whitish colour by nature, but often so 

 stained by the damp of the locality as to present quite 

 a different appearance. These eggs vary in number. I 

 have seen nests with only three, all nearly hatched ; four 

 is a common number, and sometimes there are five, but 

 one at least is generally addled, so that three young 

 Loons are generally seen following the old one.' 



" The same writer also refers in his * Fauna ' to the 

 habit of this bird of diving with its young under its 

 wing, instancing the case of a loon shot on Rockland 

 Broad, by whose side, when floating dead on the water, 

 f lay a little one not more than a week old.'f 



t( In winter the loons quit the broads altogether, and 

 betake themselves to the vicinity of the coast, where 

 they are not unfrequently killed on Breydon and other 

 waters kept open during the sharpest frost by the action 

 of the tide. I have never seen them actually at sea on 

 this coast, but in the south of England it is not unusual, 

 as well as on the more tranquil waters of the various 

 bays." 



So far Mr. Stevenson's notes ; and for some years 

 after, the same indiscriminate destruction of these birds 

 continued. He recorded in the " Zoologist " for 1866 



* This communication was made through Salmon, and appeared 

 in the 1st edition (1st November, 1835), vol. ii., text to pi. xcii. T.S. 



f Other instances are given in the 2nd edit, of the " Fauna of 

 Norfolk," p. 125, note; and Mr. Frank Norgate tells me that a 

 similar circumstance came under his personal observation on the 

 27th of July, 1865, onHickling Broad. T. S. 



