NOTES FROM NORFOLK FOR 1878. 157 
Spoonbills.—Three Spoonbills, all male birds, with fair crests 
and slight buffy tints on the neck, were killed at Yarmouth 
between the lst and 11th of June. 
August. 
Migratory Waders.—A 'Turnstone, in full breeding plumage, 
was seen on the 5th by Mr. T. W. Cremer, at his pond at Beeston, 
and on the 9th he observed at the same spot a flock consisting of 
one Wood Sandpiper (Totanus glareola), five Green Sandpipers 
(T’. ochropus), and from forty to fifty Common Sandpipers (J. hypo- 
leucus). A female Greenshank, a bird of the year, was also shot 
at a pond at Rackheath, near Norwich, on the 10th. 
Manx Shearwater.—On the 15th an adult male, very fat and 
exhausted, was picked up alive at Shottesham, quite an inland 
locality. 
Tufted Duck.—A young female of this species, evidently a 
bird of the year, was shot on the river at Keswick, near Norwich, 
on the 17th August, and most probably, judging by the date, had 
been bred in this county. 
Magpie.—A single bird seen at Northrepps on the 20th. 
Nesting of Swallows and House Martins.—The cause of the 
diminished numbers of both these species, of late years, in 
many localities, has been a theme for speculation with various 
naturalists; but so far as our cities and small country towns are 
concerned,—and even villages of any extent and importance as 
to residents’ houses,—one chief cause of disturbance, and even 
banishment, may undoubtedly be traced to the marked alteration 
in street architecture. I have been led to this conclusion by 
noticing in this quaint old city the great difference in the numbers 
of Swallows and Martins, during the breeding season, observed 
in its best thoroughfares and its less fashionable localities. 
Wherever the time-honoured wooden gables give place to the 
square roof and the iron gutter, the House Martin retires to less 
pretentious dwellings; and where—so generally the case now— 
chimney-pots take the place of the large open chimney-shaft, the 
Swaliow deserts its long-accustomed haunts, or, as I remarked in 
several instances this year, builds under the eaves of the houses 
like the House Martin, fixing its nest close up to the brickwork, 
as it would to a cross-beam in a barn-roof or the rafters of a 
boat-house. I should scarcely have noticed that these were 
