24 NOTES ON CERTAIN BIRDS 



comonly calld a stone curlewe" butt the note thereof 

 more resembleth that of a green plouer [it crossed oui\ & 

 breeds about Thetford about the stones & shingle of the 

 Riuers. 



Auoseta*' calld [I thinck a Ba.rker crossed oui] shoohing- 

 horne \written above'\ a tall black & white bird with 

 a bill semicircularly reclining or bowed upward so that 

 it is not easie to conceiue how it can feed answerable 

 vnto the Auoseta Italorum in Aldrovandus a summer 

 marsh bird & not unfrequent in Marshland. 



[A bird calld Barker from the note it hath crossed out] 

 A yarwhelp°° so thought to bee named from its note a 



"' This characteristic Norfolk bird is still far from rare in the locality 

 named by Browne, and is found in several other parts of the county. 

 Willughby says, " The learned and famous Sir Thomas Brown, Physician 

 in Norwich," informed him to the same effect, and repeats that its note 

 (one of the most charming sounds uttered on the wild trackless heath on a 

 summer's night) resembles that of the Green (i.e., Golden) Plover, but in 

 the ear of the writer it is even more musical. In the third letter to 

 Merrett, Browne says that he has kept the Stone Curlew (not "four 

 Curlews," as Wilkin has it,) in large cages. 



" The Avoset is another bird which formerly frequented the marshy 

 districts of Norfolk at the breeding time, but which has now been lost to 

 us except as a very rare passing migrant in the spring. It probably 

 ceased to breed in this county in or about the year 1818, and is said to 

 have been exterminated in consequence of the demand for its feathers for 

 the purpose of dressing artificial flies. It was called " Shoeing-horn," 

 from the peculiar form of its beak, which, however, rather resembles the 

 bent awl used by shoemakers. Girdlestone, who knew the bird well in its 

 breeding haunts at Salthouse and Horsey, called it " Shoe-awl," a much 

 more appropriate name. In his third letter to Merrett, Browne again men- 

 tions this bird, and applies to it the name of " Barker" (which he had 

 crossed out in the above note), remarking that it was so called from its 

 barking note. Jonston figures this bird twice ; once in Tab. 48 under the 

 name of Avosetia Italor., i.e., the Avosetta of the Italians, and again in 

 Tab. 54 under the second name Avoselte sjiecies, an obvious error. 



" This paragraph is written on the back of fol. 16. The Yarwhelp is 

 the name by which the Black-tailed Godwit, a species which formerly 

 nested in abundance in the marshes about Horsey and some adjacent local- 

 ities in the Broads, was known. It virtually ceased to nest here sometime 

 between the years 1829 and 1835, but perhaps an instance or two may have 



