301 
In the ornithological part of his work, which occupies by far the 
larger portion of the volume, and on which the author’s fame has 
been chiefly established, only the rarer species amongst the so-called 
“land birds” are treated of, but his notes on the various Raptorial 
species, resident or migratory, to be met with in Norfolk, are well 
worth reading, more especially as to the harriers, noiv all but extinct 
in our marshy districts. His warnings as to the senseless persecu- 
tion of the hawk tribe in general for the preservation of game, 
apply still more forcibly at the present day, for he points to the 
enormous increase of ground vermin, in rats and mice, as the 
nemesis of the wholesale destruction of their natural enemies — 
owls, kestrels, weasels, and stoats. His threnody over the fate of 
the nobler falcons, w r as also aroused bv his deep interest in all that 
related to hawks and hawking, and, as he happily puts it, the very 
sight of one now-a-days is “like that of the rusty mail or the 
monument of a departed hero, for the memories of the past crowd 
upon the mind when these birds, now proscribed and almost anni- 
hilated amongst us, were the favourites of ladies and the companions 
of princes.” 
His carefully written chapter “On the remains of falconry in 
Norfolk,” is one of the most interesting in the whole volume, ami 
evinces the many sources, both ancient and modern, from whence 
his information was derived ; whilst the time and pains devoted to 
the subject is shown by voluminous extracts amongst his MSS. 
from works as scarce and difficult of access as ‘ La Fauconnerie de 
Jean de Franchieres, grand prieur d’Aquitaine’ (Paris, 1585). 
Though not himself a falconer, he had many opportunities of wit- 
nessing both heron and rook hawking in his earlier days, when the 
late. Lord Berners (Colonel Wilson) had a hawking establishment 
at Didlington, and Mr. Downes kept hawks in the neighbourhood 
of Yarmouth, and amongst the latest entries in his interleaved 
‘Bewick,’ are notes of a visit in December, 1853, to the late Mr. 
C. E. New’come, of Feltwell, whose trained peregrines showed him 
excellent sport at rooks, and to whose thorough knowledge of the 
art, as revived during the present century, he gives credit, where 
indeed credit was due, by claiming fur him the distinction of being 
“ the most practical falconer of his day.” 
The Bustard, although a bird of the western rather than the 
eastern division of the county, and which had but recently become 
