Note 13 — NOTES[H] ON CERTAIN BIRDS FOUND IN NORFOLK.

Browne here refers to the family in general terms. The various species of Gulls in their different stages of plumage were very puzzling to the Ornithologists of the last century, and it is often extremely difficult to say to what individual species they refer. By Larus major he would probably mean the Black-backed and Herring Gulls which are found on the shore all the year round, most frequently in the immature plumage, but they most abound "in herring time." By far the commonest species at all times is Browne's Larus alba or Puet, the Black-headed Gull. Large flocks of this species and L. canus frequent Breydon and the tidal shores, especially the young birds of the year. There are now two large breeding-places of the Black-headed Gull in Norfolk, a very old-established one at Scoulton Mere, and a more recent colony at Hoveton Broad. The former extensive gullery at Horsey, mentioned by Browne, has long since been banished by the drainage of the marsh they frequented, and it is probable that a small colony which bred on Ormesby Broad some forty years ago, owed its origin to their banishment from Horsey. They, in their turn, deserted Ormesby on the erection of the works for supplying Yarmouth with water about the year 1855, and fixed upon Hoveton as their new home, in which place, as at Scoulton, they are carefully preserved.

Professor Newton has been kind enough to furnish me with the following note on the Terns. "Larus cinereus of Aldrovandus (and afterwards of Jonston), is said to be of three kinds: one with red legs, apparently the Black-headed Gull, and figured by Jonston, the second with yellow legs and a slender curved black bill, the third with a pointed scarlet bill. Both these last were most likely Terns—and all these were grey above and white below. Gesner quotes Turner for Sterna, and there is no doubt that his bird of that name was a Black Tern; but Gesner says that it is the Stirn of the Frisians, and figures a white and grey bird with a black head only (most likely a Common Tern, but possibly one of the larger species), as Sterna, thus using the word in a more general sense, and it may have been so used in Browne's time. I see no impossibility in people having thought of eating Terns in those days [as to that see Note 7, p. 6 ante]. The Common Tern was most likely very abundant, and we know that the Black Tern was exceedingly common in certain reed-beds, as stated by Turner, and noisy beyond measure." The Great and Lesser Terns still nest in one or two localities on our coast, although as the result of great persecution in very reduced numbers. The Black Tern, or Mire Crow, has quite ceased to do so.