[26] This is one of the birds once common enough in Norfolk, which in the present day is only a winter and spring migrant. The last eggs of the Bittern were taken in this county on 30th of March, 1868; the last "boom" of a resident was heard in May, 1886, in the August of which year a young female was killed at Reedham with down still adhering to its feathers; this was probably the last Norfolk-bred Bittern. In the "Vulgar Errors," book 3, chapter xxvii., section 4, is a discourse on the "mugient noise" of the Bittern and the mode of its production, and in a foot-note in the same place is a curious anecdote illustrating the difficulty of detecting a wounded Bittern, even when marked down in short, recently mown grass and flags. The spring cry of the Bittern is mentioned by Robert Marsham in his unpublished journal nineteen times, between the years 1739 and 1775, as first heard at Stratton Strawless, generally between the 15th of March and the 15th of April; and it was on the 14th of the latter month that Benjamin Stillingfleet records it in the "Calendar of Flora" as heard in the same locality in 1755. He does not describe the note, but uses the words "makes a noise." Marsham, however, on one occasion, in 1750, a very early year, records it on the 20th of February. As a once familiar sound, but one which will probably never again be heard here under purely normal conditions, these dates seem worthy of recording.

[27] The last of the Norfolk and therefore certainly the last of the British-bred Bustards, was killed in May, 1838; those which have since occurred in this country were Continental immigrants. An exhaustive history of the extinction of this bird will be found in Stevenson's "Birds of Norfolk," vols. 2 and 3. The Bustard, although found in some numbers, associated in small flocks or "droves" in the few localities which it frequented in Great Britain, was probably never a very numerous species. The following extract from one of Browne's letters to his son Edward, dated April 30th, and written probably in 1681, shows that he was on the verge of discovering an anatomical peculiarity in this family of birds, which in after years gave rise to much controversy. He says, "yesterday I had a cock Bustard sent me from beyond Thetford. I never did see such a vast thick neck: the crop was pulled out, butt as [a] turkey hath an odde large substance without, so hath this within the inside of the skinne, and the strongest and largest neckbone of any bird in England. This I tell you, that if you meet with one you may further observe it." The presence of a gular pouch in the Bustard was first demonstrated by James Douglas, a Scotch Physician, in 1740, and it appears to be fully developed only in the adult male bird, and at the breeding season. Hence, although it has undoubtedly been found on several occasions, the frequent unsuccessful searches for it under unfavourable conditions led to much scepticism as to its existence. The use of this singular appendage is still a moot point, but it seems probable that it has to do with "voice production," and assists in the remarkable "showing off" exhibited by the male bird in the breeding season. Pennant, in his "British Zoology," 1768, i., p. 215, gives a sentimental account of its use, and an exaggerated estimate of its proportions. In the Tables of Dietary referred to at p. 6 (note) ante, the Bustard is mentioned as in season from October to May.

[28] The Dotterel visits us much as in Sir T. Browne's time, but in decreased numbers. The Sea Dotterel which Wilkin supposes to be the Ring Plover, is undoubtedly the Turnstone. Willughby says, "Our honoured Friend, Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich, sent us the picture of this bird by the title of the Sea Dotterel." This is also mentioned in the fifth letter to Merrett. See "Birds of Norfolk," ii., p. 82, for an interesting account of Dotterel hawking near Thetford by James I. in the year 1610.

[29] Mr. Stevenson, "Birds of Norfolk," ii., p. 233, gives his reasons for coming to the conclusion that the Sanderling (Calidris arenaria) is here referred to, which the absence of a hind toe (see third letter to Merrett) tends to confirm. The "Churre" is only a variant of the name "Purre," by which the next species, the Stint, is commonly known, and the Green Plover, now applied to the Lapwing, is an old name for the Golden Plover, which he rightly says [p. 20] does not breed in Norfolk.

[30] The circumstance which gave rise to the idea that there were two kinds of Cuckoos, differing only in size, might possibly be discovered were it worth the research; possibly it would be found that the second species was of foreign origin. Aldrovandus, as quoted by Willughby, says, "Our Bolognese Fowlers do unanimously affirm, that there are found a greater and a lesser sort of Cuckows; and besides, that the greater are of two kinds, which are distinguished one from the other by the only difference of colour: but the lesser differ from the greater in nothing else but magnitude." Perhaps it was Browne's latent respect for antiquity which led him to mention the tradition.

[31] It is only necessary to add to Browne's interesting account of this remarkable bird that it lingered longer in Norfolk as a breeding species than in any other part of Britain, but that although it still visits us in spring it is doubtful whether it has bred for the last few years in the one favourite locality to which it clung so tenaciously. The "Marshland," here referred to as explained in a previous note, is a tract of country situated in north-west Norfolk, near King's Lynn.

[32] Picus martius is here used, as it is by Sibbald, and all preceding writers, in a general sense for all birds commonly called "Woodpeckers," and does not imply that the Great Black Woodpecker (Picus niger maximus, of Ray's Synopsis), to which species the name was restricted by Linnæus, is found here, and Browne goes on to mention the three British Woodpeckers, the Green, the Red, by which the Great Spotted Woodpecker is intended, and the Leucomelanus, or Lesser-spotted Woodpecker. He also includes the Nuthatch, which was at that time (as well as the Wryneck) called a "Woodpecker." In this passage Browne, in making a correction, does not seem to have proceeded far enough, the word which Wilkin has rendered "dun-coloured," is certainly "dunne calld" in the MS.; but there are two alterations in the passage, and there is little doubt that he intended to write "dunne cull'd" (or coloured), which would make it read as Wilkin has printed it. The use of the word "nerve," for tendon or ligament, was in accordance with the phraseology of the time.

[33] This passage is not part of the original MS., but is written on a separate slip of paper and pasted on the left-hand side of the opening (p. 15 verso). I doubt whether it is more than a casual memorandum, descriptive possibly of the plumage of the Purple Heron, but not intended to apply to any Norfolk bird. The Black Heron of Willughby is the Glossy Ibis, a bird which is said to have been known to the West Norfolk gunners as the "Black Curlew."

[34] This is evidently the Wryneck, which we now call the "Cuckoo's Mate," probably for the same reason that Browne associates it with the Hobby. It may be that the Hobby having become comparatively scarce, it was necessary to find another travelling companion for this bird, and that the Cuckoo was chosen as the most suitable. Old Norfolk names are Emmet-eater, and in one old book it is called Turkey-bird in a MS. note.

[J] That is marked with a barred or checkered pattern.

[35] The Hoopoe would seem from this note to have been of more frequent occurrence than in the present day, see also in his answer to "Certain Queries" (Tract iv., Wilkin iv., p. 183), in which he says of this bird, "though it be not seen every day, yet we often meet with it in this country."

[36] The Ring Plover is evidently the bird here referred to, but I have never known the name of Ringlestone applied to this species in Norfolk, nor have I met with it elsewhere. The Eryngo is now no longer an article of commerce, and its diggers are extinct, but not their tradition as to the position in which the eggs of this bird are said to be placed—a "vulgar error" which does not accord with the writer's experience. When the full complement of four eggs is laid, they are arranged with their pointed ends towards the centre of the nest, which is a slight hollow in the soil. The concavity of the nest therefore, as well as the disproportionate size of the larger end, gives the eggs somewhat the appearance of being placed in the position referred to, but the small end of the egg is always visible, Sir Thomas Browne does not seem to have been aware of the remarkable fact of this essentially marine bird habitually nesting on the sandy warrens about Thetford in the south-west of Norfolk, far from the sea, which it still does, though in reduced numbers, and is there known as the Stone-hatch, from its habit of paving its nest with small stones.

[37] This characteristic Norfolk bird is still far from rare in the locality named by Browne, and is found in several other parts of the county. Willughby says, "The learned and famous Sir Thomas Brown, Physician in Norwich," informed him to the same effect, and repeats that its note (one of the most charming sounds uttered on the wild trackless heath on a summer's night) resembles that of the Green (i.e., Golden) Plover, but in the ear of the writer it is even more musical. In the third letter to Merrett, Browne says that he has kept the Stone Curlew (not "four Curlews," as Wilkin has it,) in large cages.

[38] The Avoset is another bird which formerly frequented the marshy districts of Norfolk at the breeding time, but which has now been lost to us except as a very rare passing migrant in the spring. It probably ceased to breed in this county in or about the year 1818, and is said to have been exterminated in consequence of the demand for its feathers for the purpose of dressing artificial flies. It was called "Shoeing-horn," from the peculiar form of its beak, which, however, rather resembles the bent awl used by shoemakers. Girdlestone, who knew the bird well in its breeding haunts at Salthouse and Horsey, called it "Shoe-awl," a much more appropriate name. In his third letter to Merrett, Browne again mentions this bird, and applies to it the name of "Barker" (which he had crossed out in the above note), remarking that it was so called from its barking note. Jonston figures this bird twice; once in Tab. 48 under the name of Avosetta Italor., i.e., the Avosetta of the Italians, and again in Tab. 54 under the second name Avoselta species, an obvious error.

[39] This paragraph is written on the back of fol. 16. The Yarwhelp is the name by which the Black-tailed Godwit, a species which formerly nested in abundance in the marshes about Horsey and some adjacent localities in the Broads, was known. It virtually ceased to nest here sometime between the years 1829 and 1835, but perhaps an instance or two may have occurred rather later. It was also known as the "Shrieker." Browne again refers to this bird in the fourth letter to Merrett, where he calls it "barker" (a name which he had no doubt erroneously previously applied to the Avoset), or "Latrator, a marshbird, about the bigness of a Godwitt," and once again under the name of "Yare-whelp, or barker," in his fifth letter; it may be that the name "barker" was applied indiscriminately to either species. As Lubbock names this bird as one of the "five species in particular" which "used formerly to swarm in our marshes" ("Fauna of Norfolk"), one would have thought Browne would have been better acquainted with it than seems to have been the case from the hesitating way in which he uses the vernacular name.

[40] The Hawfinch was evidently not a very well-known bird in Browne's time, either to himself or Willughby; the latter says, "it is said to build in holes of trees." It has steadily increased in frequency as a breeding species with us for the last twenty years.

[41] This paragraph is written on the back of fol. 16. The Red-backed Shrike, Lanius collurio, is the only species of Lanius mentioned by Browne; it is singular that he omits all mention of another bird, and that an essentially Norfolk species which would have been new to the Pinax—the Bearded Titmouse, afterwards known to Edwards as the Least Butcher Bird. Browne certainly sent a drawing of this bird to Ray, who in his "Collection of English words not generally used" (1674), as pointed out by Mr. Gurney, mentions it as a "little Bird of a tawny colour on the back, and a blew head, yellow bill, black legs, shot in an Osiar yard, called by Sr. Tho. for distinction sake silerella," the drawing of which he acknowledges he had received. Pennant, 1768 ("Brit. Zool.," i., p. 165), follows Edwards ("Nat. Hist. of Birds," &c., 1745), who classes it with the Laniidæ, and it was not till long after, and as the result of much discussion, that it was finally established as the only representative of a new genus under the name of Panurus biarmicus. The local name is Reed Pheasant, but Browne's name of Silerella seems an exceedingly appropriate one.

[42] Browne seems to have been much interested in this remarkable bird, and mentions it again in his second and third letters to Merrett, especially in the latter; he calls it Caprimulgus, but conceives it to be a kind of Accipiter, muscarius, or cantharophagus, "in brief" [?] "avis rostratula gutturosa, quasi coxans, scarabæis vescens, sub vesperam volans, ovum speciassisimum excludens," a fair specimen of the descriptive method of the time. Although he used the name Caprimulgus, it will be observed that he does not mention the "vulgar error" which led to its being so called. Merrett includes this species in the Pinax under the name of "Caprimulgus, or the Goat-sucker," but in a letter to Browne tells him he knows no Hawk called a Dorhawk.

[43] The Wheatear is here referred to; the name trogloditica would seem to be more appropriate in this country, having reference to its habits of nesting in "Cony borroughs," than that of ænanthe, as applied to it by those who knew it as frequenting the Continental vineyards. A name still, or recently in use in West Norfolk, is Cony-chuck.

[44] The Crow (Corvus corone) is much less common in Norfolk than formerly, but it still nests here in a few scattered localities. C. cornix, the Hooded, Norway, Danish, or "Royston" Crow, is an autumn immigrant as of yore, but not especially from the Faröe Islands; both species (or forms as by some regarded) are immigrants from the east, but the latter, as a rule, occupies a more northern range than the former. The Raven (C. corax) is now a very rare visitor to Norfolk; it is probable that it last nested in this county in the year 1859. The Jackdaw, or Caddow, is common enough, but the Chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus) is quite unknown in Norfolk. Although the Magpie must have been well known to Browne I find no mention of it in these notes.

[45] The Red-legged Partridge is now common enough; it was introduced into the Eastern Counties at Sudbourne and Rendlesham, in East Suffolk, in or about the year 1770, by both the Marquis of Hertford and Lord Rendlesham. How quickly they established themselves may be judged from the fact that in the season of 1806-7 of 1,927 Partridges killed at Rendlesham 112 were Red legs, but they do not seem to have spread very far. A second introduction, this time into West Suffolk, much nearer to the Norfolk border, at and about Culford, was effected in the year 1823, and from this centre they rapidly spread into Norfolk, in which county also others were imported by the resident proprietors.

[46] The Land Rail (Crex pratensis) or Daker hen, is doubtless here referred to, as the Water Rail has already been mentioned (p. 15 ante) as "a kind of Ralla aquatica." This bird is a summer visitor, by no means common and very uncertain in its numbers. The same applies to the Quail, which appears to be less frequent than formerly, no doubt from the great destruction on the Mediterranean coast in spring of the birds migrating to England. In the summer and autumn of 1870 we had an unusual influx of these latter birds.

[47] How far the indigenous race of Blackgame, which undoubtedly lingered for many years about Wolferton and Sandringham, still exists, it is difficult to say; examples turn up occasionally, but so many of these birds have been introduced and turned off in different parts of the county in the course of the past forty years, that it is impossible to speak with certainty.

[48] In his fifth letter to Merrett Browne says, "I confess for such little birds I am much unsatisfied on the names given to many by countrymen and uncertain what to give them myself." This is painfully apparent in the cases of the two little birds here referred to as the "Whinne-bird" and the "Chipper." From the description of the former, "marked with fine yellow spots and lesser than a Wren," also with a "shining yellow spot on the back of the head," it seems likely that the Gold-crested Wren is intended. The Chipper, he says, "comes in the spring and feeds upon the first buddings of birches and other early trees;" he also calls it "Betulæ carptor," and says that he sends a drawing to Merrett; a third mention is as follows: "That which I called a Betulæ carptor, and should rather have called it Alni carptor . . . it feeds upon alder buds, nucaments, or seeds, which grow plentifully here; they fly in little flocks." I can only suggest that this bird may be the Siskin, which fairly answers the description. It visits us in small flocks on its way north very early in the year, feeding upon the seeds of the alder, birch, and larch trees. One would however have thought that the Siskin would have been well known to Browne, as it evidently was to Turner, Willughby, and Ray. Merrett mentions it under Turner's name of "Luteola."

[49] This note is interesting as the first record of the occurrence of the Roller in Britain, to which country it is a rare wanderer. Although it had long been known on the Continent, its identity seems to have puzzled Browne, and he imagines (as did others, both before and after him,) it to be some kind of Jay; later, in his second letter to Merrett (January, 1668), he says that it answers to the description of Garrulus argentoratensis (the name given by Aldrovandus to whom it was known), and calls it "the Parrot-jay." This is five years after the original note was made, and we find that the words Garrulus argentoratensis, written by the same hand but with a different pen and ink, have been added subsequently, doubtless as the result of further information. In another letter he mentions having sent the bird to Merrett, but adds, "If you have it before I should bee content to have it againe otherwise you may please keep it."

[K] Tinge, shade, particularly a slight tint.—"Imp. Dict."

[50] This estimate of the number of species of birds and fishes existing is amusing in the light of the present knowledge of the subject. Of course any such estimate can only be approximate, and open to constant emendation; but according to a statement in the "Zoological Record" of 1896, it was believed that there were something like 386,000 described species: 2,500 of which are mammals, 12,500 birds, 4,400 reptilia and batrachia, 12,000 fishes, 50,000 mollusca, 20,000 crustacea, and 250,000 insecta; the smaller divisions I have omitted. And whereas only about 10,000 species of plants were known to Linnæus, Professor Vines in his address to the Botanical section at the Bradford meeting of the British Association, 1900, states that the approximate number of recognised plants at present existing is 175,596; but this is far short of the total of existing species. Professor Saccardo states that there are 250,000 fungi alone, and that the number of existing species in other groups would bring the total up to over 400,000.