ORNITHOLOGICAL REPORT FOR NORFOLK. 131 



being seen on one day in May, of which six were grey males. In 

 the Broad district, where they have undergone the chief persecu- 

 tion, I am glad to learn from Mr. Montagu that a scheme is on 

 foot for their protection, and none too soon. 



13th. — Under this date one of our coast watchers, where 

 there is a Tern settlement, writes to my nephew, who is secre- 

 tary of the fund, giving a good account of the birds under 

 his charge. There are, he writes, still several Tern's eggs left 

 unhatched, and not rotten ones either, as in some of them the 

 young ones can be heard inside ; also there are several young of 

 the Common Tern about on the shore, which are still incapable 

 of flight, as well as young ones which can fly, besides a fine 

 show of adults of both this species and the Lesser Tern. A 

 satisfactory report showing what protection can do. 



19th. — A young female Golden Oriole,! a species which very 

 seldom comes to Norfolk now, shot at Cley, but not anywhere 

 near the sea. The explanation of the growing scarcity of this 

 beautiful migrant seems to be that those Orioles which used to 

 come to East Anglia were birds which had wintered in Spain, 

 Sicily, and Italy. Now these have all been shot, and those 

 which winter further south — that is, in Africa— do not travel as 

 far as England, their proper limit being the North of France. 

 The same reason explains the disappearance of the Hobby, 

 which is hardly ever seen in Norfolk now, and accounts as well 

 for the scarcity of the Hoopoe. 



20th. — The irruption of Greater Spotted Woodpeckers reported 

 at Eossitton, in the Baltic (cf. 'The Field' of Sept. Uth), led 

 naturalists to expect them in England, but the number in Norfolk 

 has not been much in excess of their usual strength. The first 

 date to hand is "Northrepps, August 20th," and another the 

 next day, and another at Hanworth. Mr. Pashley had onet 

 brought him which had been shot close to the sea by a man who 

 was digging for worms on the muds, and I watched anothert 

 which seemed to have just arrived. It is curious that among so 

 many migrations of this species we should never have met with 

 an instance of the Green Woodpecker crossing the sea, nor has it 

 been obtained in Heligoland. 



28th. — No wind. Two Glossy Ibises seen by the watcher on 

 Breydon Broad had gone the next day. 



