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the “beach- way ” nearest the sea; but they showed a decided prefer- 
ence for the salt marshes, and he only once saw them alight on 
the stones of the beach. He never saw more than fifteen or twenty 
in one flock, but they generally consorted, in small numbers, with 
snow buntings. On one occasion he killed a snow bunting out of 
a flock, and on going up to it found a shore lark sitting by it, 
which it seemed very disinclined to leave as he approached. These 
almost annual winter visitants, as they may now be termed in 
Norfolk, again made their appearance on our coast in October. At 
Yarmouth about the 2Gth, three males and two females were shot 
out of a small flock, and a much larger number at the same time 
frequented the beach and “ backwater ” at Salthouse. 
Eider Duck. A female of this occasional winter visitant was 
shot at Kelling, near Holt, on the 2nd of January. 
Wildfowl and the Winter of 1875 — 6. Altogether the 
wdnter of 1875 — 6 was remarkable for the dearth of wildfowl of 
all kinds, and that chiefly for the reason given in my previous 
notes. The severe but brief period of frost about the middle of 
January, brought a sprinkling of “hard weather’' fowl to the waters 
of Breydon, consisting of some goosanders, golden eyes, and swans, 
with a few old birds amongst them; and on the 15th two fine male 
goosanders were sent to Norwich, which had been killed on the 
Beccles river. 
Bittern. A male was shot at Weyborne on the 7th of January, 
a female at Hickling on the 3rd of February, and two -in other 
parts of the county in the month of November. 
Smews. Amongst the rarer species of fowl obtained this year on 
the coast, may be mentioned an adult pair of Smews, killed at 
Yarmouth in January. 
Water Hens Migratory? Mr. Oordeaux, of Great Cotes, 
Ulceby, Lincolnshire, recorded in the ‘Zoologist’ (S.S., p. 4709), 
the appearance of a supposed migratory flock of these birds, 
in his neighbourhood on the 23rd of October, 1875 ; and 
Mr. J. II. Gurney informs me that a flock of about fifty was seen 
in a meadow at Keswick, near Norwich, on the 10th of February 
last. Mr. F. Norgate, also, tells me that, in the middle of 
