MISCELLANEOUS NOTES FROM YARMOUTH. 421 
old time home, and eventually dispersed; some to find new 
lodgings, which I sincerely hope they will occupy next spring. 
In July a Shrike captured a Shrew, impaling it on a thorn, 
the spike penetrating the skull. 
Goldfinches were delightfully plentiful this year in villages 
south of the town. 
July 21st I saw hundreds of Black-headed Gulls, young 
and old, on a Bure-side marsh, their first wupeatarce in the 
neighbourhood after nesting. 
Saw one Spoonbill in Breydon on July 18th, and two on the 
23rd. 
On August 12th about one hundred and twenty Swifts had 
gathered in the vicinity of the St. George’s Park, a favourite 
assembling ground for small birds, and were seen to go away in 
a body due south-east. Two or three hundred Curlews on 
Breydon, on August 16th. 
I saw, on August 18th, a nice flock of Turnstones on the 
Breydon flats, near my house-boat. They invariably ran down 
the wind, now and then with very ruffled feathers; then 
suddenly turning, they would work back, pushing the prostrate 
Zostera with biil and forehead until it looked rough-ploughed, 
the weed being piled in heaps almost as high as the birds. In 
the soft ooze thus uncovered any crustaceans seen were promptly 
snapped up. Many Redshanks and Ringed Plovers consorted 
with them, occasionally benefiting by the labours of their 
stouter companions. This is the only observation I have 
thought worth recording for the whole of my summer holidays ! 
During the gloomy September I frequently observed hungry 
Swallows flying up and down in front of bill-posting stations, 
snapping at the blue-bottle flies that had gathered here and 
there to enjoy such little warmth as obtained in a southerly 
aspect, probably quite as much attracted by the paste kept 
damp by frequent showers. On one occasion a bird flitted 
between myseif and the hoarding, snapping up a fly disturbed 
by my coming. On the 14th, when I was walking along 
Breydon ‘‘ walls” to my house-boat, these birds flicked round 
and round me, deftly capturing the dipterous insects brushed 
out of the grass as I walked. I put out some Tipule, but never 
saw one of them taken by these birds. 
