Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/139

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ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM NORFOLK.
111

29th.—Another of the chestnut Partridges,† an adult of a dark Grouse-like colour, killed at Elsing (T.E. Gunn), which is near where the others have all been taken, and where a race has really been perpetuated, this being the fourth year in which they have turned up, and the present the twelfth example. It would be interesting to see what a young one, about half-grown, would be like, as no doubt the dark plumage would show. As so much has been said in these "Notes" about this singular variety, the accompanying reproduction of a sketch by Mr. Herd may be acceptable (Plate II.), representing one of our best specimens (killed last November), a typical Perdix montana, Briss.; and very like Brisson's plate, with just the same light head and neck. Even in his time it was known to cross with the Common Partridge, from which the French ornithologists supposed it to be distinct.

30th.—S. The bushes by the sea full of small birds, including a Nightingale and some Pied Flycatchers, the wind, which had been westerly, having suddenly veered round to S.E. (Pashley). A good many Sky-Larks were found dead under the telephone-wires at Cley (Pashley), and a Dunlin was shot in a turnip-field at Trimmingham (Buxton); but this was before the movement noticed by Mr. Haigh in Lincolnshire.

October.

Wind west, ten days; south, eight days; north, six days; east, four days.

1st.—S. veering to S.S.E. Hundreds of Long-tailed Tits seen in St. George's Park, Yarmouth, by Mr. Patterson; but the true Acredula caudata was not detected among them, though, according to the late Mr. Churchill Babington, it has been met with in Norfolk. It seems to have been a great Tit year, as Mr. Bligh counted twenty-seven Long-tailed Tits in one flock in August, and I noticed several. Mr. Caton Haigh reports that it is many autumns since he noticed so many Great and Blue Tits in Lincolnshire. 1882 was also a Tit year in Norfolk, and in October, 1880, there were troops of them near Cromer—distinguishable by the white on the head being restricted to the crown—which had presumably crossed the sea. Great Tits have been taken at Norfolk light-vessels several times, but the Long-tailed Tit only once. About this time four Grey Phalaropes were