166 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



hearing the calls of Eooks from above when the birds themselves 

 were too high up to be seen (T. C, p. 207). 



Again, when little bands of Passeres, such as Finches, 

 Buntings, Larks, Pipits, Wheatears, and Swallows (bands often 

 composed of four or five individuals only), are to be seen going 

 the wrong way — that is to say, north-west, when they should be 

 going south or south-east — as often happens in the autumn 

 (chiefly in September), it surely must be held that their move- 

 ments are ruled by wind. These retrograde movements are 

 coastal movements, and are especially to be observed near 

 Cromer. It may be granted that they are partly due to the 

 rounded outline of Norfolk's sea-board, but the main factor is 

 wind. 



The Winter Migration consisted of large arrivals as usual of 

 Blackbirds, Wood-Pigeons (especially on November 21st),* Snipe, 

 Wild Duck, Teal (over 200 in one small pond), &c, in December, 

 as well as Waxwings and Woodcocks, the two best bags of the 

 last-named being made at Sheringham (23) and Stratton (22). 

 No Little Auks. As regards Waxwings, their numbers, although 

 considerable, cannot have equalled what were seen in the great 

 Waxwing winter of 1866-7, nevertheless the attention which 

 they attracted was universal ; although the whole eastern sea- 

 board of England was visited, it seems to have been in Norfolk 

 that the largest number landed. The credit of adding the Wax- 

 wing to the list of British birds has generally been given to 

 Martin Lister, but as a matter of fact it belongs to a Norfolk 

 naturalist, the celebrated Sir Thomas Browne, who was the first 

 to detect this migrant from the north, and the same observer also 

 added the Bearded Tit to our avifauna. I 



* Which coincides with observations in Kirkcudbrightshire, where, in 

 twenty-five years, the Duchess of Bedford had never seen anything approach- 

 ing their numbers (' Scottish Naturalist,' 1913, p. 283). 



\ The Waxwing being a very notable and conspicuous bird, early 

 attracted attention in Western Europe, and a good deal might be compiled 

 about it from Continental literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries. Conrad Gesner in his ' Historia Animalium ' alludes to an 

 enormous flight of Waxwings in Germany (lib. iii. p. 674) :— " Garruli Bohe- 

 mici anno Salutis MDLII inter Moguntiam [Mainz] & Bingam [Bingen, 

 twenty miles distant] juxta Bhenum maximis examinibus apparuerunt 

 n tanta copia, ut subito qua transuolabant, ex umbra earum veluti nox 

 appareret . . ." 



