484 CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES 
Broadland and are spreading to other parts of the county, and into Suffolk. 
The most characteristic of our Norfolk birds is, I think, the bearded tit, 
because, in spite of rumours of its having been recently reported as nesting 
in one of the southern counties, I believe East Anglia—there is good 
evidence that one or two pairs now nest in East Suffolk—is still its restricted 
home in these islands. Cold is its greatest enemy, and in a severe winter, 
such as that of 1916-17, our Norfolk race is very nearly exterminated. 
However, mild winters come along again, and at the present time the head 
keeper at Hickling, Mr. Jim Vincent, tells me that the census of these birds 
in that area is the greatest he remembers. 
BRECKLAND. 
Our Trust has not, I regret to say, been successful, so far, in obtaining 
the ownership of any part of Breckland, though we are alive to the im- 
portance of securing a suitably sized area of this part of England. Already 
some 40,000 to 50,000 acres have been bought by the Forestry Commis- 
sioners and are either planted or about to be planted, mostly with Scots 
firs, and there would seem to be no limit to the activities of the Commis- 
sioners in that district. During the past summer we made a strong appeal 
to them to resell to us 1,200 acres from a plot of 6,000 acres of the Culford 
Estate that they had purchased, but we were not successful. Indirectly 
we hope we have saved Lakenheath Warren, some 2,000 odd acres, by 
purchasing property in Lakenheath to which common rights are linked, 
because we are assured that without the consent of all the commoners the 
warren cannot be planted or built upon. 
THE MANAGEMENT OF SANCTUARIES. 
A word as to the management of sanctuaries. The first essential is to 
make continuous war on all four-footed vermin. I have been told that 
on an isolated area like Scolt Head Island it would be wise to leave the 
stoats so that they may keep in check the rats and rabbits. Putting aside 
the question of trying to differentiate between suitable traps, I have never 
yet met anyone who has seen a stoat attack a full-grown rat, and I have 
evidence of the work of stoats on a ternery. Only this summer did our 
watcher on Scolt Head find on one early morning fifty young terns that 
had been killed during the night and hidden under a sueda bush. He 
suspected stoats and located the culprits, a male, female and three fully- 
grown young, in a nearby rabbit hole and succeeded in killing them all. 
This was the work of one night only : had they been left they would have 
cleared the ternery of chicks in a week. On Scolt Head, which is practi- 
cally treeless, all the birds are ground roosting, and we have evidence that 
the stoats on the island live principally upon feathered food. 
Other marauders are gulls and skuas. Any attempt at nesting on the 
ternery by black-headed gulls must be immediately checked : they suck 
the eggs and eat the chicks of the terns. The immature larger gulls that 
hang about the ternery must also be controlled. Skuas are annoying to 
the terns, but they do no real mischief. 
We have had short-eared owls nesting on Scolt Head Island, which 
made visits to the ternery every evening after their young were hatched. 
We did not intervene. Inthe last two years a male and female hen-harrier 
and two merlins have wintered on the island and took heavy toll of the 
large flocks of linnets and snow-buntings. They gave pleasure to many 
field ornithologists. 
Is a ternery a menace to the local fishermen? This is a question we 
