ORNITHOLOGICAL REPORT FOR NORFOLK. 135 
from the back of the bird. I tried my best, in Mr. Hamond’s 
company, to see this ornithological phenomenon, but with no 
success; though we were rewarded by a gentleman resident in the 
parish showing us a luminous tree. It was the stump of an 
ash which, when he found it, had a phosphorescent superficies of 
several feet on the decayed side, but the glow was not very bright, 
and there certainly was no hole which could have held an Owl. 
25th. — Another luminous Barn-Owl seen in Haddiscoe 
marshes by Mr. L. C. Farman, an observer not likely to be mis- 
taken, flitting across the marshes near Haddiscoe Dam at about 
six paces from the ground. It showed very bright at times, and 
then frequently vanished, no doubt as its breast and head turned 
away from the observer ; but soon it was seen to appear again in 
the distance, sometimes showing up exceedingly bright. On 
two subsequent nights Mr. Farman had opportunities of watch- 
ing it, and one or two other persons also saw it. As Haddiscoe 
is thirty miles from where the other luminous pair were seen, it 
could not have been one of them, though the same causes, what- 
ever they were, may have operated to produce it. 
27th.—A flock of five White-eyed Pochards reported to Mr. 
Bird to be on Hickling Broad, and about the same time a Gadwall 
and some Wild Swans. Mr. Bird does not say that any of the 
Pochards were shot, so that their identity is hardly established. 
VARIETIES OF PLUMAGE. 
January 11th.—Cream-coloured Fieldfare seen at Smallburgh 
(Bird). 14th. Reported melanism of the Water-Rail at Horsey 
Broad [for a similar instance, in Hampshire, cf. Zool. 1891, p. 67]. 
3lst. Cinnamon Redwing at Gorleston (K. C. Saunders), and 
another at Cromer (Pashley). 
February 1st.—Pied Blackbirdt at Mr. Roberts’s, and a few 
days afterwards a silver-grey one at Martham, as I am informed 
by Mr. Saunders. 18th. Mr. Saunders received a Blackbirdt 
which exhibited a narrow transverse bar, or “‘ hunger trace” as 
I believe this appearance is sometimes termed, on nearly every 
feather of the body, but especially on the tail. 
June 1st.—At the beginning of June (p.u.) Mr. H. Wormald 
saw one of the brown race of Partridges (Perdix montana) in a 
field near Dereham, which he believes it had been frequenting 
