80 MR. F. D. PALMER ON OLD-TIME YARMOUTH NATURALISTS. 
breeding season ; and, in company with his friend and school- 
fellow, the late John Gunn of Irstead, who was afterwards also 
well known as a geologist and an old “ Valpeian,” delighted, during 
their holidays, in bird’s-nesting expeditions, which led to the 
formation, by Mr. Rising, of a valuable collection of eggs. This 
collection thus commenced by Mr. Robert Rising was added to 
from time to time, and is now in the possession of his son, 
Mr. T. A. Rising of Ormesby and Great Yarmouth ; it contains the 
eggs of many rare and some almost extinct specimens of British birds, 
such as the Avocet, Bittern, and Reeve. Mr. Rising used to relate 
how, on one occasion, he discovered, in one marsh alone, no less 
than twenty-two nests of the Avocet ; whilst the eggs of the Black- 
headed and other Gulls were found in such enormous quantities 
that they were gathered in large linen-baskets, and formed a staple 
diet for the villagers, by whom they were made into custards, etc. 
So numerous were their nests that the marsh-men, in raising the 
drainage banks, would remove the nests on their spades, and put 
them out of their way, when the sitting birds would again return 
to them. Another incident of which Mr. Rising used to speak 
was the capture of a number of young Sheldrakes. The old birds 
nested in the rabbit-burrows on the warren next the sea, and 
observing some of their young broods swimming in the pools of 
water in the adjoining marsh, he and the late John Gunn, boy-like, 
waded in and caught a number of the young ones, which they took 
home and turned off in a pond with the tame Ducks. In those 
days the boom of the Bittern or “ Bottle-bump,” as it was termed 
by the marsh-men, was a familiar sound in the breeding season ; 
whilst the fierce combats of the Ruffs were frequently observed, 
when their annual contests took place on their regular battle-fields, 
which were generally the higher ground in the marshes, where the 
Reeves were nesting. Altogether it was a perfect paradise for 
youths with any love for Natural History. Under such favourable 
circumstances, Mr. R. Rising commenced the celebrated collection 
of Norfolk Birds of which he died possessed, and which were, with 
scarcely an exception, shot on the estate, and not a few of them 
with his own gun. Many of these are referred to in Yarrell’a and 
Stevenson’s works. The collection, which was sold at Mr. Rising’s 
decease, included such rare specimens as the White winged Black 
Lern (almost il not the first recorded specimen shot in England), 
