THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 706.— April, 1900. 



THE BIRDS OF GREAT YARMOUTH AND THE 

 NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



By Arthur Patterson. 



The aspects of bird-life in the Great Yarmouth district are 

 exceedingly interesting, and must have been peculiarly so in the 

 earlier part of the century, prior to the improved drainage of the 

 marsh-lands, the encroachments of the sportsman, the agriculturist, 

 and the builder, the advent of railways, and many other untoward 

 circumstances. The Rev. Richard Lubbock, in the introduction 

 to his ' Fauna of Norfolk,' truly remarks : " We everywhere find 

 the spirit of civilization and improvement warring with the ferae 

 naturae" In a note written by him in 1847* he says : — " Since 

 I first began to sport, about 1816, a marvellous alteration has 

 taken place in Norfolk, particularly in the marshy parts. When 

 first I remember the fens they were full of Terns, Ruffs, and 

 Redlegs ; and yet the old fenmen declared there was not a tenth 

 part of what they remembered when boys. Now these very parts 

 which were the best . . . are totally drained . . . dry as a 

 bowling-green, and oats are grown where seven or eight years 

 back one hundred and twenty-three Snipes were killed in one day 

 by the same gun." Mr. Southwell goes on to speak of a dry 

 pasture pointed out to him by the late Mr. Rising, at Horsey, 



* Vide Lubbock's ' Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk,' new ed. 1879, 

 p. iii, Introduction, by T. Southwell, F.Z.S. 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. IV., April, 1900. m 



