NOTES FROM NORFOLK. 57 



The winter of 1890-91, like that of 1860-61, brought to the 

 coast of Norfolk many Whoopers and some Bewick's Swans. 

 Twenty Swans, mostly Whoopers, were shot, at or in the vicinity 

 of Cley, and the Yarmouth district produced as many more; 

 besides which, others were shot at Lynn and Wells. 



On Jan. 10th Colonel Feilden saw a Whooper flying, almost 

 in the town of Wells, not higher than the gas-lamps. It rose 

 into the air with a fine trumpeting note, and he was so near that 

 he could plainly discern the bright yellow colour at the base of 

 the bill, the bird being not more than thirty yards distant 

 from him. 



On Jan. 3rd Mr. Smith, the taxidermist at Great Yarmouth, 

 wrote that in Yarmouth roadstead there were hundreds and 

 thousands of wildfowl, their numbers at sea off Scratby extending 

 more than a mile along the coast. It is thirty winters, I believe, 

 since Wigeon were so abundant. The gunners computed that at 

 Cley and Blakeney about 3000 Wild Ducks, of different species, 

 had been shot by the time the frost broke up, including Golden- 

 eyes, Pochards, Shelducks and Goosanders. One punt, owned 

 by a man named Long, got fifty-four ducks in Cley Harbour in 

 one day. 



Other birds besides wildfowl had a hard time of it. On 

 Jan. 5th eighty Wood Pigeons were caught at one pull of a net, 

 at Hempstead, where the keeper had taken eighty-three only ten 

 days before. During snow and sharp weather is the time to get 

 Wood Pigeons ; they are then enticed into an open shed with a 

 wire top, and the fatal net is let down in front when the man in 

 concealment deems that there are enough inside. 



Of late years the Red-breasted Merganser, Mergus serrator, 

 has been quite a rarity. On Jan. 6th, 1891, a female of this 

 species was shot at Cley ; and on the same day a Fork-tailed 

 Petrel, Thalassidroma Leachii, was procured at Yarmouth. 



On or about Jan. 9th three Red-necked Grebes, Podicipes 

 rubricollis, were shot at Yarmouth, and about the same time a 

 migration of these birds was observed in Yorkshire, and was 

 recorded by Mr. Nelson (Zool. 1891, p. 253). 



On Jan. 10th an adult male Smew, Mergus albellus, was shot 

 on the River Waveney, at Wortwell, and taken to Mr. Candler, 

 at Yarmouth, for preservation. About the same time, or shortly 

 before, four more of these birds were obtained at Yarmouth by 



ZOOLOGIST. — FEB. 1892. F 



