ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM NORFOLK. 123 



Naturalists' Society has done all in its power to second so 

 laudable an effort, and will continue to do so, while on its recom- 

 mendation the Poaching Prevention Society has also interested 

 itself in the matter. 



I am indebted as usual to various correspondents for most of 

 my information, and have only examined those birds against 

 whose names a dagger is placed. Notes on varieties are placed 

 together at the end, there being no importance in the dates at 

 which they may happen to be seen, nor much interest in pied 

 birds of any kind ; but melanisms and erythryisms by their rarity 

 are always worth recording. 



January. 



7th. — Wet. Eagle-Owls making their usual nest-hole. 



8th. — My son brought back from Cley a Pink-footed Goose,t 

 and saw some Guillemots. 



9th. — I am indebted to Mr. W. A. Dutt and Mr. Darkins, the 

 decoyman, for particulars of the successful winter take at Fritton 

 decoy — the best for many years ; but these figures have been 

 already communicated by Mr. Southwell (Zool. 1900, p. 239), and 

 need not be repeated. I also learn from him that flocks of Goosan- 

 ders and Smews frequented Holkham lake, and that a Shoveler was 

 sent to Norwich. Among the fowl taken at the decoy, Mr. Dutt 

 reports a Long-tailed Duck, a very unusual capture. At Holkham 

 lake there has never been a decoy. 



10th. — Several Bitterns were reported at the end of December, 

 and also in the beginning of January, which is the Bittern's 

 month par excellence, when they are doubtless frozen out of more 

 northern countries. The movement was very extended, reaching 

 to Devonshire and other parts of England, and also to Ireland. 

 Mr. T. E. Gunn, the taxidermist, received six for preservation, 

 of which five were males, a proportion in the sexes which has 

 been noticed before by Mr. Lowne, who in fourteen years had 

 obtained only one female. 



February. 



27th. — I learn from my correspondent, the Rev. M. C. Bird, 

 to whom I am as usual much indebted, that during one of the 

 annual Coot "battues" a Bittern was heard "booming" on 

 Rushhills ; this early utterance of a once familiar sound, which 



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