FOUND IN NORFOLK. II 



remarkable in their white colour copped crowne & 

 spoone or spatule like bill. 



corvus marinus. cormorants.i^ building at Reedham 

 upon trees from whence King charles the first was wont 

 to bee supplyed. beside the Rock cormorant wch breed- 

 eth in the rocks in northerne countries & cometh to us 

 in the winter, somewhat differing from the other in 

 largenesse & whitenesse under the wings. 



instituting a commission to inquire into the harrying of the eyries of 

 these and other birds, &c., at Cantley and other places in Norfolk. 

 Documents also exist, showing that in 1523 they nested at Fulham 

 in Middlesex, and in 1570 in West Sussex, as pointed out by Mr. Harting 

 in the "Zoologist" for 1877, p. 425, and 1886, p. 81, in each case 

 constructing their nests in trees. At what precise date this bird ceased to 

 breed in Norfolk and Suffolk is unknown, but Sir T. Browne's statement 

 that they were "shot by fowlers not for their meat, butt the hand- 

 somenesse of the same," probably explains the circumstances which 

 brought about that event. The Spoonbill visits Norfolk regularly every 

 spring in siriall parties now more numerously than a few years since, which 

 possibly may be accounted for by the destruction of nearly all its breeding- 

 places in Holland, and it is possible that with due encouragement it might 

 again be induced to breed in some of the localities in the Broads still 

 suitable for the purpose. 



^^ The Cormorant continued to nest in the trees on the shore of Fritton 

 Lake for many years after Sir T. Browne's time. A manuscript note in a 

 copy of Berkenhout's " Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland," 

 published in 1769, is descriptive of a Cormorant killed at Belton Decoy 

 (near the same lake) on the nth September, 177S, and also states that 

 "a vast number of these birds, even to some thousands, roost every night 

 upon the trees," being in the neighbourhood of the decoy they are 

 never shot, and " build their nests upon the top of these trees." 

 According to Mr. Lubbock ("Favina of Norf.," Ed. 2, p. 174), "in 

 1825 there were many nests at Herringfleet, also on Fritton Lake, and in 

 1827 not one." We may therefore assume that they ceased to nest at 

 Herringfleet in 1825 or 1826, It will be noticed that Browne made free 

 use of young Cormorants in his experiments as to the properties of certain 

 drugs (it/". Wilkin, iv. , p. 452), which would seem to indicate that he could 

 obtain a plentiful supply of these birds. When the Cormorants ceased to 

 breed at Reedham is unknown. They are not unfrequently seen now, 

 generally in spring and autumn. The Rock Cormorant was possibly the 

 Crested Cormorant or Shag. 



