7390 Birds. 



Snipe were numerous early in the season, but woodcocks scarce 

 throughout. 



All these, thus timely warned, seemed to pass on to the southward, 

 whilst others, in more or less numbers, appeared throughout the 

 intense frosts that followed in the months of December and January. 



The fact of the broads and rivers being frozen during those months, 

 and the fowl thus driven to the coast for subsistence, will account 

 probably for no unusual number being obtained in this neighbour- 

 hood, either by gunners or in decoys, those killed and sent to our 

 markets consisting of teal, wigeon and mallard, with pochards and 

 goldeneye scaups, scoters and tufted ducks in smaller quantities. The 

 extraordinary weather-beaten appearance of some of the fowl showed 

 how much they had suffered from the intense severity of the weather ; 

 several old male scoters looked completely bleached, and their gene- 

 ral appearance indicated, as surely as the sharp keel of the breast- 

 bone, that cold and hunger had almost done their work. 



Of rarer kinds, immature and female goosanders and smews have 

 been frequently met with, but old males are very scarce, and of these 

 the few specimens shot have been all obtained since the departure of 

 the frost and snow. 



Several hoopers have been killed at Yarmouth and other parts of 

 the coast, and some more inland, since the breaking up of the frost; 

 but I have heard of only one Bewick's swan having been killed in this 

 district. Wild geese — like the wild ducks, more plentifully seen than 

 procured — have comprised the ordinary kinds, the pinkfooted being 

 probably the rarest amongst them. 



The broads being frozen over, their usual denizens — the coots, 

 grebes and waterhens — have had a hard time of it, the former making 

 for the coast with other wildfowl ; and snipe were not to be met with, 

 except a few weighty specimens that had found a snug retreat beside 

 some inland spring. Several green sandpipers were shot during the 

 sharpest weather, between the 24th of December and the 5lh of 

 January. 



The combined influences of cold, starvation and persecution caused 

 a dreadful slaughter amongst the fieldfares, redwings, blackbirds, 

 thrushes and starlings during the early period of the frost, especially in 

 the Christmas week. The roads and lanes were then infested with 

 gunners of every class, from the schoolboy to the " doubtful customer;" 

 and 1 fear the amount of partridges popped off under the corn-stacks, 

 by many of the latter description, has in some places sadly thinned 

 the already scanty supply for another season. It is worthy of remark, 



