SOME BIRD NOTES 263 



Arrivals were late in the autumn of 1906. The first 

 brought to market appeared on November 3rd. One had 

 been previously killed on September 3Oth. The usual mishaps 

 occurred. I heard of a woodcock being entangled in the bough 

 of a fir tree. A bird in November was seen to fly through one 

 of the streets and make in the direction of the Town Hall, 

 where it was afterwards seized when asleep on one of the 

 upstair window-sills. Four were observed to come in from 

 sea at daybreak on the morning of November ist, flying 

 low over the water as if wing- weary. 



A woodcock was flushed from a garden flower-bed, which 

 overlooks Breydon, on July 2nd, 1905. 



I picked up the remains of a woodcock at the tidemark 

 on April 2Oth, 1906. In all probability this was a migrant 

 victim, overcome by the recent severe easterly gales. 



Until the autumn of 1906 my heaviest recorded woodcock 

 was fifteen ounces ; but one taken on board a lightship 

 weighed sixteen ounces dead weight when brought ashore. 



THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE 



It is gratifying to know that this charming bird still 

 breeds regularly with us on the Norfolk Broads, and that 

 even those who seem eager, from privilege, to shoot almost 

 every winged thing, as well as the Broad folk generally, 

 seem proud of its presence there. 



In August, 1906, I was witness to a very pretty display of 

 fish-catching by a female grebe, which almost entirely ignored 

 my presence in its domains at a corner of Filby Broad. It 

 is impossible to describe the stately manner of its swim- 

 ming, or convey an idea of its lightning-like plunges into 

 the depths of the Broad : it seems an intensely living, 

 joyous thing, whose grace of motion is only equalled by its 

 beauty. 



Accompanying the grebe were two or three young ones, 

 uttering queer " peepy " cries like so many little ducks ; they 

 approached their parent one at a time, as if in turn, to re- 

 ceive the small roach invariably brought to them for food. 

 The old bird would lift her head erect, stretching her neck 

 to the fullest, and spreading her crest, as if to inspire and 



