278 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Occasionally very large numbers of this and kindred 

 species are found cast up dead upon the beach ; these 

 wholesale destructions occur immediately after protracted 

 storms, and doubtless arise from the birds, through stress 

 of weather, and consequent inability to obtain food, being 

 buffeted by the breakers until they perish from exhaus- 

 tion induced by their involuntary fast. A remarkable in- 

 stance of this sort occurred in 1851, and is thus recorded 

 by Mr. J. H. Gurney, in the " Zoologist " (p. 5159) : 

 " On the morning of Sunda}^ May llth (after some 

 severe north-easterly gales), a very large number of sea 

 birds, recently dead, were observed on the beach in the 

 neighbourhood of Cromer : they were washed up, mixed 

 with seaweed, and were found lying near the edge of 

 the water in considerable numbers, so much so that a 

 lady counted 240 in the space of not more than two 

 miles ; many were gathered for manure, one man col- 

 lecting four cartloads, partly composed of seaweed, but 

 principally of dead birds. I have ascertained that they 

 extended along the beach for full six miles ; I am in- 

 formed that many were washed up at Caister, near 

 Yarmouth, and I have no doubt that others may have 

 been found on other parts of the coast, respecting which 

 no information has reached me. I have had some diffi- 

 culty in ascertaining the exact species of the birds thus 

 destroyed ; but, as far as I can learn, they were chiefly 

 foolish guillemots, intermingled with razorbills, puffins, 

 and gulls." Mr. Dowell says that about Blakeney there 

 were vast numbers of guillemots and razorbills washed 

 up, but he saw no gulls; he dissected several of the 

 birds but found no trace of disease. A writer in the 

 "Field" (May 17th, 1856), who examined many of the 

 birds, also states that he could find " no marks of ex- 

 ternal violence nor any indication of starvation. After 

 similar gales, on the 22nd March, 1875, in the spring 

 of 1878, and again on the 23rd March, 1883, I was 

 witness to like mortalities, but on a much smaller scale, 

 on the same coast.*" 



In the " Field " for the 9th October, 1859, will be found an 

 account of a similar mortality amongst the sea-birds on the west 

 coast on even a larger scale. It is said that vast numbers of dead 



