os 
i. 
VOL. XI.] ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES. 251 
in the first week of December 1917 failed to see or hear a 
singie bird in the Horsey and Hickling district. This great 
decrease is without doubt attributable to the frosts of 
February, which starved so many birds. One sent to Mr. 
Saunders was probably a waif which had succumbed, but in 
most cases a starved bird would sink into the reeds and not 
be found. 
GRASSHOPPER-WARBLER (Locustella n. neevia) 
One seen by Mr. Nudd on May Ist, and two heard ** reeling * 
by the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain on May 11th: this Warbler 
isfat no time a common bird in Norfolk. 
REepDwine (Turdus musicus). 
To no species was the frost along the coast more 
fatal than the Redwing. In hard weather large numbers 
move from inland quarters towards the sea, taught by 
instinct that there the ground is usually softer and less 
icebound, but on this occasion it was of little avail. On 
January 21st Mr. Henry Cole saw Redwings coming off the 
sea at Cromer, and again on the 22nd and 23rd, when they 
were passing all day. Soon the poor things began to crowd 
into and through the town, seeking shelter in yards abutting 
on the streets, or anywhere. The Redwing seems to be a 
delicate bird at all times, and it is not surprising that Mr. 
Patterson also gives a lamentable account of their condition 
at Yarmouth, where, in a few particular places, resorted to 
for shelter, they lay on the ground almost one to the square 
yard. Similar reports, but not quite so bad, came in from 
Mr. Smith of Sheringham. The result was that when autumn 
came round, instead of the November flocks of Redwings 
and Fieldfares trooping overhead, hardly one was to be seen. 
Thrushes also had yielded to adverse circumstances and died, 
but in smaller numbers, the bulk of them having gone south 
before the frost came. 
SwaLLow (Hirundo r. rustica). 
The great movement of Swallows recorded by Dr. B. B. 
Riviere on April 29th (antea, p. 66), observed from day- 
break, but which may have begun long before sunrise, is 
very noteworthy, because the same thing has been witnessed 
at Blakeney and Cley, which are some twenty-five miles 
farther west, in the spring (April and May). Further 
observations will probably prove it to be an annual passage, 
and often on a very large scale. But what is even more 
remarkable is the vast autumnal passage of House Martins 
