478 
VII. 
ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FOR 1877. 
By Henry Stevenson, F.L.S. 
Read 26 tli February, 1878. 
Occurrences worthy of record, under the above heading have 
been unusually scarce throughout the past year, its commencement 
being characterized by an unseasonable mildness and excess of 
rain, alike prejudicial to the prospects of the sportsman and 
the collector ; whilst later on the penalties now in force under the 
improved Wildfowl Protection Act, had a salutary effect in check- 
ing the slaughter of migratory species ; and with a few notable 
exceptions, killed in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth, to be here- 
after mentioned, I know of no casualties infringing upon the law 
in Norfolk, either inland or on the coast. Except in the fens of 
the south-western part of the county, Norfolk did not suffer to any 
great extent from the floods which in January covered so large an 
area in Lincolnshire, Huntingdonshire, and even parts of Suffolk, 
but about Fcltwcll and Lakenheath the amount of water “out” 
caused great loss to the farmers ; the seed corn rotting in the 
soddened soil, mills stopped, and many hands thrown out of 
employ, and still, day after day, there was the same leaden sky, 
and the rain came down with but brief intervals of respite till all 
was depression and slush ! At this time, though the rivers were 
full, the marshes of the eastern or “Broad” district of the county 
suffered but little owing to the extreme lowness of the tide at 
Yarmouth and adjoining parts of the coast, but not so at the 
close of the month, when the fearful gales on the 29th and 30th, 
which caused such sad loss of life amongst our smacksmen in the 
North Sea, broke upon our shores, and lunar influences combined 
with the hurricane to raise the most destructive tide that had been 
known, hereabouts, for thirty years. The tidal streams which 
empty themselves into the sea at Yarmouth and Lowestoft over- 
flowed their banks and inundated an immense tract of marshes, 
