ORNITHOLOGICAL REPORT FOR NORFOLK. 163 



look like breeding ; and, as regards nests, there is not much to 

 announce this year, save that a few may have bred on the western 

 side of the county, and that a supposed nest was built in a fir- 

 tree at Caister, near Yarmouth (T. W. Hogarth). Another nest 

 was recorded in the north of Suffolk, which has been more 

 favoured than Norfolk by Crossbills.* 



The Autumnal Migration. — The movement which Mr. B. B. 

 Eiviere and Mr. S. Long witnessed in November was, as all our 

 great autumnal rushes of birds have been before, a movement 

 from the east. This time the advancing army must have come 

 to England in great strength, and, as has happened before, the 

 species were many, and their arrival more or less continuous 

 throughout the day. When autumn migrants, and especially 

 when migrants of many diverse species, are seen coming into 

 Norfolk by day, as in this instance, it has generally been assumed, 

 and with reason, that their passage has been retarded by con- 

 trary winds. It is always dangerous to theorise, but so far as 

 local observations go, it would seem that very few, if any, 

 migrants arrive by their own choice on the coast of Norfolk in 

 the daytime, except Books and Crows, and perhaps Sky-Larks. 

 Yet probably the Larks which we see are few indeed to what 

 pass over in the night, for Mr. Eagle Clarke says that no other 

 species perishes in such numbers at the light -stations as Larks do 

 ('Studies in Bird Migration,' i. p. 230). On referring to the 

 Daily Beports issued by the Meteorological Society, it is clear 

 that the theory of a retarded migration is borne out by what 

 happened on Nov. 6th and 7th. At 7 a.m. on the morning of 



- ;: The earliest notice of the Crossbill in this country, if not in any 

 country, is contained in Paris ' Chronicle,' under date of 1251 : — " In the 

 course of this year [1251] ," writes the Monk of St. Albans, " about the fruit- 

 season [i. e. September] , there appeared, in the orchards chiefly, some 

 remarkable birds, which had never been before seen in England, somewhat 

 larger than larks, which ate the kernel of the fruit and nothing else, whereby 

 the trees were fruitless, to the loss of many. The beaks of these birds were 

 crossed, so that by these means they opened the fruit as if with pincers or a 

 knife ; and that part of the fruit which they left was, as it were, infected 

 with poison" (Bonn's translation). I believe my late father's notice was 

 drawn to this passage about 1862, and in 1880 Professor Newton, who very 

 likely received a reference to it from him, ascertained, through the medium 

 of " Notes and Queries," that the original account in manuscript still existed 

 at Corpus College (c/. ' British Birds,' iv. p. 190). 



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