124 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



very communicable to other birds,* and no Pheasants that I am 

 aware of took it in this part of England. 



New Norfolk Species. — The county is credited with two new 

 birds. A Little Bunting (Emberiza pusilla, Pall.), an Asiatic 

 species which seems to be spreading westwards, was killed in 

 October, and was sent to Mr. H. F. Witherby, and by him 

 exhibited at a meeting of the Ornithologists' Club. Its small 

 size sufficiently distinguishes it from the other Buntings, as well 

 as the brown colour of the sides of the head. The other species 

 is Baird's Sandpiper, Tringa bairdi (Coues), which was shot at 

 Hunstanton on Sept. 16th, 1903, a month which, on referring to 

 ' The Zoologist,' will be seen to have witnessed a great East 

 Coast immigration (cf. Zool. 1904, p. 209). This rarity, which 

 was not recorded at the time, and has only been recently brought 

 to the knowledge of Norfolk naturalists, was received on the 

 19th by Mr. George Bristow, taxidermist, St. Leonards, and 

 examined while still in the flesh by Mr. M. J. Nicoll, himself 

 the shooter of the first British T. bairdi (' British Birds,' i. 

 p. 15), and it has since passed into Sir Vauncey Crewe's collec- 

 tion at Calke Abbey. This Sandpiper is closely allied to Bona- 

 parte's Sandpiper (T. fuscicollis), but is slightly larger, and its 

 ash-grey colour is not so uniform in winter, and there is rather 

 less white on the upper tail-coverts. These two additions bring 

 the Norfolk list up to three hundred and eighteen, only seven 

 short of Mr. Nelson's total for Yorkshire, 



The rainfall for 1908 was 24*31 in. 



January. 



1st. — The New Year began with the arrival of two Pintails on 

 a protected pond at Marsham (Miss Buxton), a Gadwall (W. 

 Lowne), and some other commoner fowl. On the 5th Mr. B. Dye 

 notes three Tufted Ducks, and on the 6th twenty-seven were 

 counted at one end of Fritton Lake, where they mixed freely with 

 Miss Buxton's pinioned wildfowl, and showed their tameness by 

 diving for wheat thrown to them, a food they highly relish, while 

 paying but little regard to the distributor standing on the bank. 



On the 12th the lake was frozen over, and Mr. Buxton had a 



* It was some disease of this nature which affected the Tawny Owl de- 

 scribed in « The Zoologist ' for 1902, p. 84. 



