380 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



mooring-ropes. If they slip, they do not fall but cling and 

 scamper along like acrobats, and usually manage to end their 

 performances satisfactorily to themselves. These Eats find 

 much to examine in the marine creatures that fall into the billage ; 

 whilst by day Sparrows and Starlings are occasionally observed 

 picking small crustaceans from the drying nets. I might remark 

 that the shrimpers work by the tides, dropping out to sea on the 

 first of the ebb-tide and returning on the top of the flood. 



Pigeon shoots were instituted all over the county in March, 

 the destructiveness of the Wood-Pigeon having called for repres- 

 sive measures. I was informed that at the "big shoot " organized 

 by Sir Savile Crossley at Somerleyton the guns averaged nine 

 birds apiece ; my informant having been stationed in a likely 

 corner bagged fourteen. Two birds which he sent me were 

 empty, " early shot birds," he said, " that had not had time to 

 breakfast." A third bird's crop contained half a cupful of clover 

 leaves ; it had managed to begin breakfast ! An old gamekeeper 

 friend assured me he once shot, on the Lacon estate at Ormesby, 

 a Pigeon from whose crop he counted two hundred and eighty- 

 two large peas ; another closely packed crop disclosed a solid, 

 hard-compressed ball of clover leaves that filled his two hands, 

 and which, when loosely shaken up, nearly filled a quarter-peck 

 measure. 



A strange movement of small birds attracted much attention 

 in the neighbourhood, more particularly in Gorleston. The 

 flight was described to me as taking place in the early morning 

 of March 11th, the birds flying at an elevation of some three 

 hundred feet ; the flock extended over a mile and a half, and 

 was of considerable breadth, sufficient to make an appreciable 

 darkening of the sky in passing. No bird fell out, and the 

 species seemed to remain in doubt. Mr. J. H. Gurney wrote me 

 that he had obtained evidence from Mr. J. Vincent, a Broadland 

 gamekeeper, that many flocks of Starlings flew over in a westerly 

 direction at the same time at Horsey. The conclusion Mr. 

 Gurney came to was that the Yarmouth birds were also Starlings. 

 There was nothing abnormal in the wind or weather ; so that 

 the direction of the birds' flight may be also looked upon as 

 something of an enigma. 



A Mistle-Thrush, nesting in the heart of the town, day after 



