Birds. 



8709 



the task of collecting particulars of the specimens obtained less 

 difficult ; but on the contrary, every one having something to say 

 respecting them, the tangled skein of evidence has required much 

 careful investigation to prevent confusion in numbers, dates and 

 localities. Thanks to the kindness of various correspondents — 

 amongst whom my thanks are especially due to Captain Longe, of 

 Yarmouth ; Mr. Rising, of Horsey ; Mr. Southwell, of Fakenhara ; 

 Mr. Dix, of Ipswich ; and Mr. Spalding, of Westleton — I am enabled 

 to give the fullest particulars respecting no less than sixty-three spe- 

 cimens obtained in Norfolk and Suffolk ; though at the same time I 

 doubt not that some few others may have passed unnoticed, either 

 not being preserved when shot, from ignorance of their value, or kept 

 "quiet" in the hands of certain individuals, whose title to possession, 

 or method of procuring them, may be equally questionable. It is 

 most probable that the birds which have appeared so simultaneously 

 on our eastern coast are members of one large flock, which has 

 become scattered by repeated alarms. I ^shall therefore arrange my 

 notes of the various individuals killed up to the present time 

 according to the dates of their capture, in whatever county procured. 



May 23. — One female found dead on Yarmouth beach. "The first 

 intimation," writes Captain Longe, " of the Syrrhaptes paradoxus in 

 this county was, as is often the case, totally unheeded. On the 23rd of 

 May, Mr. Youell, the well-known nursery gardener, was walking by 

 the sea near the North Battery, when he saw a small bird washed up 

 and down in the foam : its beautiful markings attracted his attention, 

 and he brought it home, but, being very much knocked about and 

 slightly decomposed, he did not think it worth keeping. One of his 

 men, however, by name Hunt, skinned it and preserved the skin, and 

 it proved to be a female. There were no signs of shot-marks about 

 it, and I do not doubt it dropped in the sea from exhaustion, and was 

 washed ashore by the tide." It is particularly worthy of note that 

 this bird was first seen the day following the capture of the pair 

 recorded in the ' Times ' by Mr. E. J. Schollick, which were killed in 

 the Isle of Walney on the 22nd of May, — the earliest record, on this 

 occasion, of the appearance of these birds in England. This one 

 example, so accidentally observed, marks in all probability the date 

 of* arrival, on the Norfolk coast, of the large numbers subsequently 

 met with, and which no doubt remained unnoticed, and therefore un- 

 disturbed, till the first week in June. 



May 28. — A female at Thorpe, near Aldborough. A notice of this, 



