ORNITHOLOGICAL REPORT FOR NORFOLK. 133 



Oct. 6th Mr. Bird notes one at Hickling Broad. [These dates 

 do not synchronise with the large numbers blown on to the 

 north-west coast of England, but one is recorded on Oct. 9th at 

 Doncaster.] 



October. 



2nd. — Very warm, the temperature rising to 78"4°, the highest 

 October reading Mr. Preston has known. Yesterday a Bittern 

 was heard booming by Mr. Nudd, and there were one hundred 

 and twenty Martins counted on my house. The Bittern is one 

 of the seven birds which are now protected in Norfolk through- 

 out the whole year. To-day another Yellow-browed Warbler 

 occurred. 



6th. — S.S.E., 1. [My nephew, who was on the North Sea, 

 saw Thrushes, Linnets, &c, and one Wood-Pigeon, when about 

 one hundred miles from Hull, which easily distanced the steamer, 

 flying round it as it went along.] 



14th. — A Spoonbill seen on the Broads by Mr. Nudd was 

 joined by another on the 18th. 



16th. — A Great Crested Grebe picked up on the road at Pul- 

 ham Market by Mr. J. Burstall. Great change in the tempera- 

 ture from yesterday. 



18th. — Misty all day by the sea, with a high wind from the 

 east, registered in the 'Weather Pieport' as "E., 5, overcast, 

 fog; Yarmouth." Owing to this wind thousands of Starlings, 

 which are not infrequently day-migrants, arrived, Mr. Patterson 

 tells me, at Happisburgh during the evening, the earlier flocks 

 reaching land about 5 p.m. As soon as the lighthouse was lit up 

 great numbers crowded round the lantern, so that its rays began 

 to be obscured by such masses. Mr. Gentry, the principal of the 

 lighthouse, who has on previous occasions sent me notes, could 

 not form an estimate of their numbers, but in answer to some 

 queries replies : — " There were immense numbers round the 

 light all through the night ; the air was full of them, and be- 

 tween the lighthouse and the coastguard station, a distance of 

 about a hundred yards, they were one mass. The coastguards 

 reckoned they had about eighty down the chimneys, making the 

 walls and ceilings of the rooms in a terrible mess, and I had 

 about forty down our chimneys." Mr. Patterson also says that 

 many small flocks passed over Yarmouth, and that numbers 



