242 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



for their visiting us. Unfortunately, added to the rarity of their 

 appearance, they are such a desirable prey, that gunners are 

 soon after them, and a study of their habits becomes impossible. 

 On June 7th I received a postcard from Oulton, which ran 

 as follows : 



" DEAR MR. PATTERSON, 



" I have observed for many years small parties of 

 wild geese migrating over here during first week of June. 

 Yesterday they came as usual, quite low, and alighted on 

 the marshes. What are they, and whence? One year I 

 identified bernacles ; curiously enough geese are never seen 

 here regularly at any other time. ^ S E " 



I replied to " W. S. E.'s " communication, and he again 

 wrote, on June 29th : 



"DEAR MR. PATTERSON, 



" I thank you very much for your letter of yesterday, 

 but you do not seem to have caught the point of my last. 



" I should never have thought anything of seeing geese in 

 June casually, but I have observed three small skeins pass 

 over from north to south for forty years, always about the same 

 date. I originally thought they were brents, as in 1869 half 

 a dozen passed within thirty yards of me ; but since then I 

 have twice identified bernacles ; and this twice are the only 

 occasions I have ever identified bernacles in Norfolk and 

 Suffolk at any time of the year. Forty years ago pink- 

 footed were commonest, and fed regularly in winter on 

 Barnaby marshes, but of late years what few geese are seen 

 about here are mostly Frontinacs. 



" Another great change is occurring, teal are becoming so 

 scarce that if it continues they will soon become extinct. 

 There are a few breeding in the centre of Norway still where 

 I shoot, and on the top of a moderately low mountain, where 

 snow melts by mid-June, and does not lie again thereon 

 until late September, I find in late August golden plover 

 and dotterel, to have bred there." 



" P.S. A moorhen last week made an apology of a nest 

 on the cover of one of my boats moored in the reeds here, 

 and laid three eggs. On Sunday I got an old basket, 

 covered it with dead rush and made her quite a natural nest 

 on top, placing the three eggs therein. Within an hour 

 (11 a.m.) she laid a fourth egg on the boat cover and pulled 

 the eggs out of my nest, breaking one, which I consider an 

 extraordinary action on the moorhen's part. ^ 5 E " 



