VOL. XI. | ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES. 24.7 
emaciated to travel. Hooded Crows, carnivorous at any 
time and now compelled by hunger, laid aside their usual 
shyness. Quartering estuaries in their search for injured 
birds, they soon came under Mr. Arthur Patterson’s notice 
at Breydon, where, he writes, they pounced on a Canada 
Goose which had fallen wounded on the ice, beyond the 
reach of the gunners. Nor did the Coots escape the vigilance 
of the Crows, which seem by instinct to find out any bird 
that is in difficulties, for Mr. Nudd states that on his Broad 
many Coots died of starvation, and the Crows had a fine time 
of it. The unfortunate Coots have to put up with a good 
deal at any time. I am told that they have been known to 
be frozen to the ice by their tails,when, being startled suddenly, 
they had to leave these appendages behind them ! 
The Rev. M. C. Bird received word in February of one 
being eaten by a 14-lb. pike, whose jaws revealed the black 
feathers, when he was pulled in on the Broad. This I can 
easily believe, knowing that a shot Pheasant falling where 
there are pike stands a very poor chance in the water. 
When our inland Broads are frozen over, the Coots have 
to seek the tidal flats of Breydon, where they hope to find 
the cord-like stems of Zostera marina. During the second 
week of February Mr. Patterson and Mr. B. Dye estimated 
that there were about two thousand on Breydon, where 
they quickly became a target for all the gunners. [fourteen 
were killed by a single shot (Dye), nor would they be wasted, 
for some of our fenmen prefer a Coot, well cleaned of its thick 
down, to a Wild Duck. 
Great numbers of starving Black-headed Gulls, which had 
followed the Yare up to Norwich, frequented, not only the 
suburbs, where many people fed them, but the very streets. 
Thirty or forty at a time were to be seen on the roofs of houses, 
when charity of this sort was dispensed. Other persons less 
kind-hearted, snared them on manure heaps, and among 
those taken were two which bore Rossitten rings (Nos. 25459 
and 11426) and one a Heligoland ring (23181)., The Norwich 
police, thinking it possible that they were German spy-gulls, 
promptly reported to the War Office ! 
” In the course of a long stroll on the shore near Happisburgh, 
Mr. Robert Gurney came across nearly a hundred Gulls, 
some dead, some dying, but all in an advanced stage of 
starvation. They were mostly Black-headed and Common 
Gulls, but with them were two Black-backs, a Razorbill, a 
Puffin, a Heron and a Brent Goose. An idea of the many 
birds which were to be found on the shore at this time can 
