NOTES FROM NORFOLK. 329 
of about thirty Swans that passed close to his house, but no 
Ducks or Geese in that locality. 
Of the great immigration of Redwings and Fieldfares between 
the 18th and 21st of December, 1878, referred to in my last 
year’s “Notes,” I have received particulars from various corre- 
spondents. 
Mr. Bellin remarks the extraordinary number of Redwings, 
Fieldfares, and Missel Thrushes that in the first frost passed 
southward along the Yarmouth coast, the flight lasting for days. 
Mr. Cremer gives the same account at Beeston, where, as inland, 
the Redwings largely predominated; they passed in a constant 
stream from east to west, the largest flights in the evening. He 
shot a great many by standing under the fences in their line of 
fight, as they kept coming all day in the same direction. At 
Sheringham, near Beeston, Mr. H. M. Upcher says, many of 
these birds ‘‘ were picked up dead, day by day, under an Arbutus 
shrub, as many as seven in one morning; the birds, no doubt, 
having crept under for warmth”; but, from an absence of wind 
at the time, these birds, though sadly pinched for food, did not 
suffer as I have known them to do in some winters. At Feltwell, 
on the other side of the county, Mr. Upcher adds: ‘‘ Birds of this 
kind seemed to leave with the beginning of the frost, and the few 
that remained probably died of cold or starvation.” 
Sky Larks were, at that time, so plentiful in the “ Fen,” that 
from twenty to thirty dozen were taken daily in “hingles.” He 
saw some wild Geese when shooting at Didlington, but heard of 
none about Blakeney at that time, and but few Ducks, except at 
night. In the south-western part of the county, on the river at 
Buckenham, and in the vicinity of the adjacent meres, there was 
excellent Duck-shooting whilst the frost lasted, but from the 
number bred yearly on the Merton and Wretham Estates, 
including Teal, Shovellers, Gadwalls, and even Pochards, these 
may not have been largely increased by foreign arrivals. Again, 
from the north and west of the county, Mr. Anthony Hamond 
wrote on the 19th of December, that at Westacre ‘“ springs” 
he had had good sport with wildfowl, including Mallard, Gad- 
wall, Shovellers, Widgeon, and Teal, and he understood there 
were large numbers in his district. One man, about the 10th 
or 12th of December, shot twenty-three couples of Snipe at 
Hunstanton. 
2 U 
