22 NOTES ON CERTAIN BIRDS 



[fol. IS verso.] black heron'"' black on both sides 

 the bottom of the neck neck [sic] white gray on the 

 outside spotted all along with black on the inside a 

 black coppe of small feathers some a spanne long, bill 

 poynted and yallowe 3 inches long 



back heron coloured intermixed with long white 

 fethers 



the flying (?) fethers black 



the brest black & white most black 



the legges & feet not green but an ordinarie dark 

 cork [?] colour. 



[FoL 16.] The number of riuulets becks & streames 

 whose banks are beset with willowes & Alders wch 

 giue occasion of easier fishing & slooping to the water 

 makes that [bir crossed out] handsome coulered bird 

 abound wch is calld Alcedo Ispida or the King fisher, 

 they bild in holes about grauell pitts [have their nests 

 very full crossed out] wherein [are crossed out] is \above\ 

 to bee found great quantitie of small fish bones. & lay [a 

 crossed out] very handsome round & as it were polished 

 egges. 



An Hobby bird"* so calld becaus it comes in ether 

 with or a litle before the Hobbies in the spring, of the 



83 This passage is not part of the original MS., but is written on a 

 separate slip of paper and pasted on the left-hand side of the opening 

 (p. 15 verso). I doubt whether it is more than a casual memorandum, 

 descriptive possibly of the plumage of the Purple Heron, but not 

 intended to apply to any Norfolk bird. The Black Heron of Willughby 

 is the Glossy Ibis, a bird which is said to have been known to the West 

 Norfolk gunners as the " Black Curlew.'' 



M This is evidently the Wryneck, which we now call the "Cuckoo's 

 Mate," probably for the same reason that Browne associates it with the 

 Hobby. It may be that the Hobby having become comparatively scarce, 

 it was necessary to find another travelling companion for this bird, and 

 that the Cuckoo was chosen as the most suitable. Old Norfolk names 

 are Emmet-eater, and in one old book it is called Turkey-bird in a MS. 

 note. 



