!N SOUTH-WESTERN NORFOLK. 
567 
Mr. Newcome on Hockwold Fen, where we saw several of our 
summer birds, as Spotted Flycatchers and House Martins, which had 
at that time hardly shown themselves at Elveden, as well as a flock 
of about fifteen Ring Plovers, two pairs of Redshanks, one Snipe, 
several Wild Ducks, one Teal, four pairs of Black Terns, and about 
one hundred Black-headed Gulls. A company of live Ruffs was 
also seen by my brother. About this time the water was rapidly 
decreasing in extent under the influence of drying winds and a hot 
sun. 
Our next visit was on the 3rd of June, when one could walk dry 
shod over most of the ground. On that day were observed nearly 
all the ordinary passerine birds of the locality and season, beside one 
Redshank, one Snipe, a flock of sixteen Herons, a Kittle Grebe and 
its nest, and a flock of about two hundred Black-headed Gulls, 
many nests of which we saw, though they had all been robbed 
of their eggs. These nests were on what had been, if 1 remember 
right, an oat-stubble of tho preceding autumn, and at the time of 
their making on the margin of the flood, but when we saw them the 
water was far oil'. On the preceding day Mr. Newcome had seen, as 
he told us, a Gannet flying over Hockwold Fen ; and we afterwards 
learnt from him that on the 8th of June three nests of the Black Tern, 
two with three and one with two eggs, were taken in Feltwell Fen. 
Three of these eggs, one from each nest, he was so kind as to give 
to us, and 1 was able to show them — undoubtedly the last that 
were laid in West Norfolk — to the members of the Society on their 
recent visit to Cambridge. The two others ho kept for himself, and 
they are still in the collection he made. 
A fortnight later we again visited what had been the scene of the 
Flood, now a thing of tho past. On the 16th of June we saw 
in Feltwell Fen thirteen Herons, four Snipes, a Redshank, and some 
two hundred Black-headed Gulls, together with a nest containing 
two eggs of the last. The next day, in the same Fen, we saw a pair 
of Harriers, presumably Montagu’s, the same flock of Black-headed 
Gulls, and three Redshanks in Hockwold Fen, one of which my 
brother Edward, watching from the top of a straw-stack, saw go on 
to her nest, and walking up she rose at his feet from her four eggs, 
which were hard sat upon. This nest was on what had been a 
wlieat-stubble, hand-reaped, fully nine inches or a foot high, and 
much over-grown with weeds. The following day, being the 18th 
