Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/158

134 and it is many years since I have heard of any eggs in the Cromer district.

1st.—W. This being the day on which Norfolk shoreshooting now opens (except for Ducks), I took a long walk on the beach, annexing a Temminck's Stint,† adult male, and noticing a great many young Turnstones. High-tide mark presented its usual line of zoological rubbish, including fifteen remnants of Little Auks, one Razorbill, one Guillemot, four young Puffins, five Starlings, and a Rook; but most of these had been dead a long time, and the Little Auks since March. The show of Terns was very good, and when this is the case we always, in September, have Richardson's Skuas, and I obtained a good opportunity of watching their piratical habits, though I must say the Lesser Terns are altogether too confiding, lending themselves to robbery by flying about with fish in their mouths, which it would be much easier to swallow. Probably they catch more fish than they can eat; anyhow, the dexterous Skua sees his opportunity, and, dashing at the Tern, easily catches the silvery prey before it can reach the water.

3rd.—My nephew, who was sleeping on board a smack, saw Green Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Greenshank, Whimbrel, Shelduck, Gannet; and, on the shore, Whitethroat, Ring-Ouzel, and what he believed to be two Blue-throated Warblers; and his companion shot several Turnstones, and another man shot a Scoter.

5th. Three Black-tailed Godwits reported on Breydon (Patterson).

6th.—Went to Cley again, and saw, at Mr. Pashley's, a very young Red-necked Grebe† with dark facial stripes, which had been shot on Blakenny bar. The occurrence of such immature Grebes is certainly curious, and this is the third, if not the fourth Podicipes griseigena taken at Cley, and two of them were not full grown (cf. Booth's 'Rough Notes,' pt. xiii.; Zool. xi. p. 142); yet there does not seem any likelihood that they are English-bred ones.

8th.—Solitary Snipe in Yarmouth market (Patterson).

9th.—W. Five Blue-throated Warblers seen at Cley, of