G8 
MR. J. H. GURNEY ON THE LITTLE AUK IN NORFOLK. 
a long way inland, even to Quidenliam and Thetford. On 
New Year’s Bay, three were picked up at Wells, and taken to 
Colonel Feilden, and about the same time two were shot or found 
at Yarmouth, and Mr. J. A. Cole had one from Wreningham 
and one from Forncett. On the 5th, Mr. Leach encountered four 
in his walk at Blakeney, on or near the shore; and on the 7th, 
two were picked up at Sidestrand, and others, about the same date, 
at other places. 
As far as I can make out, the greatest number of these castaways 
were picked up — very few being killed with the gun — between 
the 10th and 27th of January. It is probable a good many met 
their fate on the 23rd, the day when Eccles church on the shore 
was swept away. On Monday the 21st the poor half-starved 
and enfeebled Little Auks were passing along the north coast 
of Norfolk, near enough to the beach for Mr. E. Ramm, who was 
on the look out, to estimate that one flock contained a hundred. 
It is easy to understand how a gale would blow them inland, 
already weakened by hunger; and, probably, not one of these flocks 
seen by Mr. Ramm, or even a single individual of them, escaped. 
About the same time, or earlier, large numbers were noticed 
on the Yorkshire coast, where Mr. W. J. Clarke of Scarborough 
writes that he must have seen, swimming, flying, or lying dead upon 
the sands, considerably over 1000. Many of these Scarborough 
Auks, passing Lincolnshire comparatively unscathed, were doubt- 
less the same individuals afterwards arrested in their southward 
coui’se by the projecting coast of Norfolk. The greatest number 
were undoubtedly obtained between King’s Lynn and Salthouse, 
and especially near Snettisham, Wells, and Blakeney, being 
buffeted in The Wash, and eventually (to save being cast ashore), 
flying a few miles inland, and dropping just anywhere. Many 
of them, when discovered, were alive, but nearly starved, and all 
of them were very thin, as if they had eaten nothing for some 
time. Mr. J. A. Cole tells me that one was caught by a dog, and 
another picked up on the pavement by the railings of the Norwich 
Hospital, and a third in Chapel Field. Another penetrated into 
the precincts of a rector’s kitchen ; while another perched on the 
stables of Hunstanton Hall, and was snowballed into the moat ; 
and one or two more were found among farm premises. From 
Yorkshire I hear of one which came down a chimney. 
