ORNITHOLOGICAL REPORT FOR NORFOLK. 137 



But oppressive as it was at Norwich, the temperature must have 

 been very different in Yorkshire, for there was a hailstorm there 

 of such dimensions that the hailstones were compared to large 

 pieces of ice, and several hundred Gulls were killed or maimed 

 ('Field,' July 11th). Norfolk birds were not much affected, 

 except that scores of Herons (old ones and young ones) were 

 endeavouring to find fish on Breydon Salt-water Broad (Jary), 

 which was no doubt owing to the heat having dried up the 

 marsh ditches. 



4th. — Mr. Bird reports Sparrows taking oats and some 

 wheat, too, on dry headlands, but partly making up for it by 



Plutella maculipennis, C. (natural size). 



devouring the larvae of the Diamond-back Moth (Plutella maculi- 

 pennis). This is the month in which they attack our peas and 

 beans, to which maybe added barley ; even the young are some- 

 times fed on the soft milky grains. The Framingham Sparrow 

 and Bats'-tail Club, which includes eleven parishes, paid 

 premiums on 6300 Sparrows and 6834 nestlings and eggs, but 

 the efforts of the local clubs do not seem to make much 

 difference. The Baveningham Club paid £17 15s. Id. on 10,387 

 Sparrows' heads and eggs. 



6th. — Swifts already beginning to migrate. 



7th. — The Depredations of Starlings. July is the month in 

 which the fruit-eating birds take a heavy toll of our orchards 

 and gardens, to the disgust of the indignant gardener. Those 

 who have standard cherry trees of large size are subject to the 

 daily depredations of Starlings, which laugh at a bell tied up in 

 the tree, and are so bold that they can hardly be kept off by 

 guns or boys. Flocks of them come to the feast, and may be 

 seen audaciously carrying off the full-sized, but hardly yet ripe, 

 whitehearts in their beaks, besides which the ground under the 

 trees is strewn with fruit which these wasteful birds drop when 

 only partly eaten. A paddock near my orchard is full of 

 scattered cherry-stones, all of which is their work ; ninety-two 

 dropped stones were counted in the space of fifteen yards, and 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. XIX., April, 1915. m 



