246 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



primaries ? If so, it had travelled a long way from its native 

 shores, and must have performed the journey by swimming, 

 and drifting with the tides. It was as fat as a mole ; and in 

 event of bad weather or an easterly gale must inevitably have 

 become tired out and come to grief. These birds have a 

 steady and well-sustained flight ; one that I got fairly close 

 to on October I3th, 1906, before it saw me, took to wing with 

 the alacrity of a duck, and flew a mile in an undeviating flight 

 before settling on the waves again. 



In April, 1903, a remarkable invasion of the ferruginous 

 duck (Fuligula nyrocd) occurred in the neighbourhood, the 

 more noticeable from the time of the year and the singularity 

 of their being mostly males ! Mr. J. H. Gurney thus refers 

 to their advent in the Zoologist: " It was during April that 

 Mr. Patterson announced in the Field that there had been a 

 notable visitation of the nyroca or white-eyed duck. They 

 either came in or divided themselves into two flocks, which 

 together amounted to twenty, one flock going to Rollesby 

 Broad, the other settling, on the I5th, on Hickling Broad, 

 where these strangers only too quickly attracted attention. 

 The presence of such a large number of this rare duck at one 

 time in England is curious, and it is to be regretted that they 

 were not fully protected, and that some persons who ought 

 to have known better molested them. . . . No such appear- 

 ance of nyroca ducks has been put on record in East Anglia 

 before, and it is to be feared there is little inducement for any 

 to come again." Four were seen at the same time in the 

 West Riding of Yorkshire. 



As Mr. Gurney said, these strangers soon attracted atten- 

 tion ; but as it was close season (!) accounts of what happened 

 to them only leaked out in interested circles. The ducks were 

 unfortunate in visiting a part of the Broadlands which is most 

 strictly preserved, and, from what I learnt afterwards, they were 

 well looked after by those who hold the exclusive right to shoot 

 over these particular portions of the Norfolk Broads. I think 

 I can truthfully state that they shared the self-same fate meted 

 out to the red-crested ducks, and were " preserved " as effec- 

 tively ! Our local sportsmen hold the theory that, as strange 

 birds are but the merest stragglers to our shores, their slaughter 

 cannot much affect the race ; and furthermore they have an 

 axiom " that if we don't shoot them, somebody else will." 



