96 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



remarkable that a sea-bird should be able to swallow so much 

 salt, or even to satisfy its thirst by sipping sea-water ! 



After a time some birds get somewhat accustomed to strange 

 sights and sounds ; and notwithstanding the great bewailing of 

 the old Breydoners over the increase of railway unrest — that " it 

 would drive away all the fowl " — the fowl they mostly referred 

 to (the Wigeon) still haunt Breydon in spring, often in some 

 numbers, hardly troubling to rise on the wing at the rumbling 

 by of a train, a few hundred feet across the north-west wall. 

 The Gulls, that were at first sadly put about and scared by the 

 earlier aeroplanes that came hovering over the flats like huge 

 Hawks, now pay little heed to them ; and I was much interested 

 in seeing a swarm of Gulls following up a fishing-boat to the 

 harbour on that morning, when, half an hour before, the guns 

 of the German cruisers had been booming discordantly in the 

 Koadstead. 



In the middle of October a beach gunner informed me that 

 he had seen several very dirty-looking Guillemots and Bazorbills 

 in the breakers, which seemed more or less unable to fly, or to 

 swim with anything like their usual ease. One or two had been 

 tumbled ashore on the easterly wind. I at once turned to the 

 south beach, where, in the course of a mile, I found a dead 

 Bazorbill at the tide-mark, its white under parts soiled as with 

 tar or black varnish ; the wing-featbers were bedaubed and 

 sticky, many of those on both wings adhering to each other. A 

 miserable Bazorbill feebly struggled in the surf, and in a few 

 minutes was tumbled ashore, but on each attempt to stalk it, it 

 wobbled, seal-like, down the wash and dived under an incoming 

 breaker. Once again it came ashore, scrambling up to the tide- 

 mark, when I threw a stone at it, mercifully stunning and killing 

 it ; it, too, was besmirched with the stuff, which might have 

 been petrol ; but whatever it was, it had dried rapidly on the 

 plumage. 



Quite a number of others came ashore between Caister and 

 Corton, all more or less bedraggled. I suspect that some unfor- 

 tunate submarine or destroyer had been sunk, and the liquid 

 had, after an explosion, come to the surface. Not long before 

 this our navy had destroyed enemy boats in the North Sea in a 

 locality frequented by these birds. Mr. F. C. Cook, of Lowestoft, 



