ORNITHOLOGICAL REPORT FOR NORFOLK. 175 



10th. — Invited to inspect four young Barn-Owls in a pigeon- 

 loft no longer used by Pigeons. A few days afterwards (18th) Miss 

 Buxton found lying on the ground under the entrance to the loft 

 a young rat and a nearly full-grown Snipef, minus its head. This 

 must surely be very unusual — at least, such an incident as a 

 Barn- Owl killing a Snipe has never come under my notice before. 

 May I here introduce two suggestive photographs, taken in York- 

 shire by another friend of the Barn-Owl, Mr. G. Parkin ; one 

 gives the contents of a Barn-Owl's stomach, viz. bones of mice 

 and young rats, the other the conglomerate of fur from which 

 they were extracted (p. 174). On May 21st, Mr. Biviere was 

 shown a Barn-Owl's nest containing six eggs and a young one 

 — a large clutch certainly, but I have twice found seven eggs 

 at Keswick. The Barn-Owl generally lays more eggs than the 

 Tawny Owl. 



21st. — Mr. E. Campbell Taylor saw a large Beed-Warbler, 

 which he is satisfied was Acrocephalus turdoides, about a mile 

 from where one was seen by the Bev. M. C. Bird in 1906 (Zool. 

 p. 132). It is possibly a regular visitor to our Broads in very 

 small numbers, and, if so, no doubt breeds here, which would 

 not be surprising, as it is pretty common at Amiens, in France, 

 less than three hundred miles away. 



August. 



9th.— A Willow-Tit obtained near Beccles by Mr. C. B. Tice- 

 hurst (' British Birds,' 1912, p. 218). In the new 'Hand-list of 

 British Birds ' (1912) the Marsh-Titmouse is split up into three 

 races, of which this form, there called the Northern Willow- 

 Titmouse, is the palest. 



21st.— A Bittern seen by Mr. Bobert Gurney on a tussock of 

 bent-down reeds, with a completely fledged young one standing 

 by it, its beak pointing up to the sky in the protective way 

 usually assumed by this species. Although he was within an 

 oar's length of both of them, and could even touch the young one 

 with his hand, it was too agile to be caught. 



24th. — Much rain to-day and yesterday. At 6 p.m. six Swifts 

 passed, going east. 



26th. — E.N.E., 6. Six hundred and seventy million tons of 

 rain in one day. Very heavy rain began at 4 a.m., and continued 



