Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/66

44 of this month, when, after a long prevalence of wind from the S. and S.W. it shifted suddenly to N.E. and N.W., the "muds" of Breydon were frequented for a few days with an unusual number of grallatorial migrants of various kinds; and of birds then procured may be mentioned two Spotted Redshanks and several Pigmy Curlews. A Spoonbill is said to have been seen at the same time.

Richardson's Skua.—An immature specimen was shot at Blakeney about the 18th.

Hoopoe.—I referred in this journal in 1875 to the singular fact that this species, which of late years has been a rare visitant to Norfolk, makes its appearance now in autumn rather than in spring, at which season, some ten or fifteen years ago, it was much more commonly seen. Mr. T.E. Gunn, bird-preserver, records, in a local publication, a specimen as shot at Filby, near Yarmouth, this month.

Blue-throated Warbler.—Though not actually procured in Norfolk, having been taken on the Lowestoft Denes, the example of this warbler recorded by Mr. G. P. Moore, in 'The Zoologist' (1877, p. 449), as entangled in some nets in July last, is most interesting to local ornithologists, as it belongs to the Scandinavian form of this species, as did also one taken under similar circumstances, and near the same spot, at Lowestoft, in May, 1856; another found dead on Yarmouth beach in September, 1841; and a third, recorded in 'The Zoologist' for 1867 (p. 1014), by Mr. J.R. Griffith, of Oxford, as identified by himself as it alighted, on the 1st September of that year, upon the rigging of the S.S. 'North Star,' when off the Norfolk coast; the vessel being bound at the time from Christiania to London.

Spotted Redshank.—Two specimens were shot on Breydon on the 12th and 22nd of this month, the former a darkish bird in change of plumage, and the latter a bird of the year.

Marsh Harrier.—One taken near Hoveton Broad about the middle of the month.

Mule Pheasant.—A remarkably fine example of the assumption of male plumage by the hen Pheasant was shown me on the 21st,