THE ZOOLOGIST
No. 706.—April, 1900.
THE BIRDS OF GREAT YARMOUTH AND THE
NEIGHBOURHOOD.
By Arthur Patterson.
The aspects of bird-life in the Great Yarmouth district are exceedingly interesting, and must have been peculiarly so in the earlier part of the century, prior to the improved drainage of the marsh-lands, the encroachments of the sportsman, the agriculturist, and the builder, the advent of railways, and many other untoward circumstances. The Rev. Richard Lubbock, in the introduction to his 'Fauna of Norfolk,' truly remarks: "We everywhere find the spirit of civilization and improvement warring with the feræ naturæ." In a note written by him in 1847[1] he says:—"Since I first began to sport, about 1816, a marvellous alteration has taken place in Norfolk, particularly in the marshy parts. When first I remember the fens they were full of Terns, Ruffs, and Redlegs; and yet the old fenmen declared there was not a tenth part of what they remembered when boys. Now these very parts which were the best... are totally drained... dry as a bowling-green, and oats are grown where seven or eight years back one hundred and twenty-three Snipes were killed in one day by the same gun." Mr. Southwell goes on to speak of a dry pasture pointed out to him by the late Mr. Rising, at Horsey,
- ↑ Vide Lubbock's 'Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk,' new ed. 1879, p. iii, Introduction, by T. Southwell, F.Z.S.
