NOTES FROM YARMOUTH. 
477 
Broads. He pulled some fronds of Zostera out of the mouths 
of some which he had shot in the act of feeding. Thirty-eight 
birds were the result of one punt-gun discharge. 1 have before 
noticed how loth these birds are to leave the beds of Zostera 
when they have once obtained a taste of it. Mr. Young also 
shot a Shag, a most unusual visitor to Breydon, particularly 
at this season of the year. 
The Gulls have now betaken themselves to their usual 
haunts, a few only frequenting the river in the neighbourhood 
of the town, and these the Black-heads. During the con- 
tinuance of bad weather these birds made themselves extremely 
conspicuous in the heart of the town. An old lady took 
a parcel of hare’s bones, broken pudding, and vegetables to 
the St. George’s Park, where they assembled in numbers. 
There was a noisy squabble both on the ground and a-wing 
over these coveted fragments, and Woods, the park-keeper, 
after they had devoured the softer morsels, smashed up the 
bones, and in a very short time they had devoured all the 
pieces. They visited the gardens all round the Park and begged 
of the householders. As usual the greatest sufferers appear 
to have been the Redwings, a fact remarked on by several 
observers who, like myself, came to the conclusion that extreme 
cold, as much as shortness of food, seriously affects this species, 
and it was noticeable, too, how, in an unusually short time they 
drooped and died — while in more protracted frosts without 
so much snow, in other years, they did not so soon succumb. 
Some were found dead at Filby, at Belton, and indeed in most 
of the villages round. Some Chaffinches were also picked up 
dead. But Larks, as they usually do, took to the cabbage 
gardens, and fed freely on the cabbages, to the undoing of 
the gardener, and in many instances to their own. 
