122 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



miles east of Marseilles, and six hundred as the crow flies from 

 Norfolk. There is nothing very suggestive in the comparison, but 

 it shows how long it generally takes migratory birds to travel on 

 from France to our shores, though it is not likely that they always 

 fly in a straight line, for the fluctuations of the wind may at any 

 time make them deviate many points east or west. 



During September and October the wind in Norfolk was 

 generally west, or some point of west, and it will be seen that it 

 was so on the four dates on which Bluethroats appeared ; but 

 the Little Gulls seen on Oct. 21st by Mr. Southwell were driven 

 to the shore by a high north wind. In Lincolnshire, as in 

 Norfolk, Mr. Caton Haigh writes that the wind was persistently 

 west and north-west, adding that up to the end of September it 

 had been about the worst season he could recollect for migrants. 

 With us the Rooks and Little Gulls seen by Mr. Southwell con- 

 stituted the only autumnal movements out of the common, but 

 Mr. Lowne observed an unusual number of Long-eared Owls in 

 his district, though the season was very uneventful indeed, com- 

 pared with many which I remember. 



An Iceland Falcon is stated, in ' The Naturalist,' to have 

 been shot in Lincolnshire during December; but there were 

 remarkably few raptorial visitants to the east coast, the autumn 

 being marked by an absence of Buzzards, though it is true I 

 heard of two Hen-Harriers ; and I one day saw six Kestrels near 

 the sea (wind W.). A Honey-Buzzard — the only one notified — 

 occurred near Thetford in November (E. T. Daubeny), but this 

 is a species which in some seasons is no rarity. 



The principal rarity to be mentioned is a Little Bustard in 

 good winter plumage, which appeared in November. I must here 

 allude to the fifteen Great Bustards turned out in the Brandon 

 district last August (not allowed full liberty) by the enterprise of 

 Lord Walsingham, in the hope that Norfolk and Suffolk may 

 once again be stocked with these magnificent game-birds ; an 

 aspiration which everyone will share, though it remains to be 

 seen what success will attend the attempt. In ' The Eastern 

 Counties Magazine ' for November, Lord Walsingham gives an 

 account of the experiment so far as it had proceeded at the time 

 of writing, and the birds are still quite safe, and in an enclosure 

 of about eight hundred acres. Needless to say, the Norwich 



