82 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



last week of this year. On the 22nd it rained heavily well into 

 the night, and next day snow began to fall. Birds began to 

 show signs of restlessness, and the Black-headed Gulls had been 

 for two or three days feeding in the river, flying around the 

 bridge, in the heart of the town — a fairly good sign of a change 

 " of some sort " coming. The morning of the 23rd dawned with 

 a fiery glow in the west, and shortly the red sky cooled into 

 grey, and from out the deepening gloom snow began to fall fast 

 and persistently, and in right good earnest. My first thoughts 

 went out for " the poor birds ! " — the birds that would die by want 

 of food and the hail of shot. 



On the 22nd and 23rd flocks of various wildfowl were observed 

 trooping along the foreshore southwards, one bunch — presum- 

 ably of Duck and Mallard — numbering quite five hundred ; and 

 a newspaper paragraph from Aldeburgh reported that " huge 

 flocks of Ducks, Wild Geese, Wigeon, and other fowl are con- 

 tinually passing south to seaboard, indicating a continuance of 

 the present severe weather." 



Such sights and reports naturally set every owner, or friend's 

 owner, of a shoulder- or punt-gun to work furbishing up his 

 weapon, and laying in stores of ammunition ; local ironmongers 

 were loading cartridges by night and by day ; and Wild Ducks 

 began to fall to the guns of several frequenters of Breydon. 

 Every amateur puntsman got afloat, and had I been an Excise 

 officer I could have made a name by sorting over the regiment 

 of those who, with every variety of gun imaginable — with, and 

 mostly without, gun-licences — skulked around Breydon walls and 

 the marshes. 



On the 27th I went for a stroll to Gorleston pier-head, having 

 heard that in their distress some Wild Ducks, " of a sort un- 

 known," were to be seen inside the harbour, but I saw none. A 

 few score small Gulls were to be seen floating on the ebb-tide by 

 the North Sand just off the pier, all the larger Gulls having gone 

 — somewhere, and few indeed were seen while the severity of the 

 weather lasted. But I noticed a few Thrushes (stray Redwings 

 and the like), Finches, and a Pipit or two cross over the pier, 

 almost within arm's length, in that steady purposeful manner 

 peculiar to them during the normal period of immigration. On 

 the 28th I went for a walk round, crossing the North Denes, 



