NOTES FROM NORFOLK. 335 
me, is one of disaster—addled eggs, young drowned or trampled 
on by the cock birds in asserting a right to some particular spot ; 
and thus, when I visited Surlingham just before the “upping” 
in August, I found instead of nine, ten, and eleven cygnets, as 
usual, with each pair, six or seven were high numbers; and more 
than one old pair had taken to the river without a single contri- 
bution to St. Helen’s Swanpit. 
Partridges, of course, suffered with other ground-nesting birds, 
and numbers of young were found dead. So bad a season has not 
been known for years, and it might have been well if, by common 
consent throughout the county, as was the case in many localities, 
partridge shooting had been postponed for a twelvemonth. 
In such a year late nesting, not only amongst the Hirundines, 
often late breeders, but with most birds, became the fashion, and 
nestlings—whether they survived or not, I cannot say—were seen 
exceptionally late. For example, a Yellowhammer’s nest, with 
eggs, was found on the 9th of October, and a young Waterhen, 
about half grown, was seen on the 25th of November; but 
but whether nestling Barn Owls at Ryburgh and Sparham, early 
in November, may be reckoned amongst the exceptional features 
of the year I am not prepared to say. If, however, our summer 
migrants failed to divert us with their song in spring and summer, 
the amende, in some slight degree, was made in our more genial 
autumn months. As late as the 15th of July the Cuckoo was 
heard singing his perfect note. Chiffchaffs and Willow Wrens in 
the last week of August were singing in my garden, as in April 
and May,—not the young male, practising his notes for next year, 
but the adult bird, in full song,—and late into September, Swallows 
were “garrulous” on the wing. It seemed almost as if the 
melody of spring, frozen up at that time in their little throats, 
had like the tunes in Munchausen’s horn thawed at last—and 
better late than never. 
Here then, from the close of one winter to the commencement 
of the next I close my narrative, trusting I may long be spared 
such a threnody over the fauna of this county as has been called 
forth by my reminiscences of 1879. 
J ANUARY. 
Shoveller.—Notwithstanding the severity of the frost at the 
time, there was a male Shoveller in our fish-market about the 
