The Zoologist — June, 1873. 3561 



tuuately, for the protection of the Sea Birds' Act, the close time 

 in which begins on the 1st of April. 



Guillemot. — A bird killed off the coast about the 20th of this 

 month was in full summer plumage. 



Sedge Warbler. — Heard and seen first time on the SOth. 



Hawfinch. — The mild winter of 1872 — 3 has been as remarkable 

 for a large influx of this species as the severe season of 1859 — 60, 

 and though it is to be feared that many of our home-bred birds 

 are amongst the slain, slill their simultaneous occurrence in more 

 southern counties, as well as in Suffolk, would seem to indicate a 

 very considerable migratory movement. The time of their 

 appearance also corresponds to that of previous seasons, extending 

 from the beginning of December to the first week in March ; and 

 although the larger number have been killed, as usual, in the 

 enclosed districts, — where, for both residents and migrants of this 

 species, old yew trees and gardens stocked with bullace trees have 

 most attractions, — a few have been procured on the coast at 

 Yarmouth, as in 1859, when a large flight alighted in the gardens 

 facing the Denes. On this occasion a considerable proportion of 

 the specimens brought to our bird-stuffers have been killed in and 

 around Diss, and chiefly in one particular garden in the town 

 itself. The number destroyed in that locality alone is variously 

 estimated at between fifty and sixty, of which at least thirty were 

 shot at Diss. Of other examples brought into Norwich to be 

 preserved I have seen ten from East Carlton ; one, Buxton ; two, 

 Berghapton; two, Kirby ; two, Arminghall; four, Lyng; three, 

 Brooke; two, Hethersett; and one, Catton ; twenty-seven in all, 

 and these probably represent but a portion of the birds sacrificed 

 when attacking the bullaces in market-gardens. Mr. Thomas 

 Southwell informs me that in all the Diss specimens, the contents 

 of whose stomachs were reserved for him to see, the food consisted 

 entirely of yew-berries; but those from East Carlton and other 

 villages near Norwich, had, in every instance, been feeding on the 

 kernels of a small stone fruit, probably the bullace, as they were 

 seen to frequent those trees. In dissecting them a very powerful 

 smell of prussic acid was evolved from the half-decomposed 

 kernels. The Rev. H. T. Frere, of Burston, received a nestling 

 hawfinch in the spring of 1872, bred in that neighbourhood, and 

 every year adds more instances of this species remaining to breed 

 both in this and the adjoining county. 



