152 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
thrown upon their dispersal, by their past and present 
distribution in England and Ireland. 
Without going into unnecessary detail, we find that the 
Tufted Duck is still spoken of, in the latest edition of 
“Yarrell’s British Birds” (Saunders), as “best known as an 
autumn and winter visitor to this country,” but the earlier 
records of its nesting in English localities are given, as also 
are its extensions to other and more northerly localities at 
later dates during the last few years, and farther south in 
Norfolk. It bred first at Malham Tarn in Yorkshire, and at 
Serlby in Nottingham, about 1849 to 1851, and at Osberton 
about 1854,1 and has extended north to South Lancashire 
(in 1884) and South Yorkshire (1880), and farther to the 
south in Norfolk first as early as 1876.. At present (ze, in 
1885, date of issue of Saunders’s “ Yarrell’’) “its headquarters 
appear to be on the ponds at Newstead Abbey, Rainworth, 
Clumber, Welbeck, Rufford, in Nottinghamshire.” 
Since the above was written, I have received the follow- 
ing note from my friend Mr J. H. Gurney—“ The breeding 
of the Tufted Duck in Norfolk was not established till 1873, 
and in 1876 it was placed beyond doubt by Professor 
Newton, who flushed and identified a Tufted Duck from six 
egos at Stanford Mere, near Walton. In 1889 their numbers 
had increased to thirty breeding pairs on this piece of water, 
and, I am glad to say, they steadily hold their ground in 
suitable places in West Norfolk, but they have not eatended to 
the “ Broads” on the east side of our county” (J. H. G., in lit, 
November 14, 1895). I have italicised the last passage, and it 
is further accentuated by correspondence on the subject with ~ 
Professor Newton, and by the details given in Stevenson’s 
“ Birds of Norfolk,” vol. iL, p. 211 e¢ seq. 
Professor Newton adds (an lit., January 4, 1896) to other 
information :—“ Though Tufted Ducks bred a good many 
years ago in Yorkshire, Northumberland, or Durham, and in 
Nottinghamshire—it has always seemed possible that my 
brother and I had something to do with the colonising of 
Norfolk. . We had pinioned birds breeding at Elveden in the 
fifties, and, I think, did not always take up all the young, so 
1 Vide Sterland and Whitaker’s Birds of Nottinghamshire, p, 56, 1879. 
