Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk Part 3

[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.

Of picus martius[32] or woodspeck many kinds. The green the Red the Leucomela.n.u.s or neatly marked [red _crossed out_] black & white & the cinereus or dunne calld [a re _struck out_] little [bird calld _written above_] a nuthack. remarkable in the larger are the hardnesse of the bill & skull & the long nerues wch tend vnto the tongue whereby it strecheth out the tongue aboue an inch out of the mouth & so [lik _crossed out_] licks up insecks. they make the holes in trees without any consideration of the winds or quarters of heauen b.u.t.t as the rottenesse thereof best affordeth conuenience.

[32] _Picus martius_ is here used, as it is by Sibbald, and all preceding writers, in a general sense for all birds commonly called "Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs," and does not imply that the Great Black Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Picus niger maximus_, of Ray's Synopsis), to which species the name was restricted by Linnaeus, is found here, and Browne goes on to mention the three British Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, the Green, the Red, by which the Great Spotted Woodp.e.c.k.e.r is intended, and the Leucomela.n.u.s, or Lesser-spotted Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. He also includes the Nuthatch, which was at that time (as well as the Wryneck) called a "Woodp.e.c.k.e.r." In this pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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.

[fol. 15 _verso_.] black heron[33] black on both sides the bottom of the neck neck [_sic_] white gray on the outside spotted all along with black on the inside a black coppe of small feathers some a spanne long. bill poynted and yallowe 3 inches long

[33] This pa.s.sage 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."

back heron coloured intermixed with long white fethers

the flying (?) fethers black

the brest black & white most black

the legges & feet not green but an ordinarie dark cork [?] colour.

[_Fol. 16._] The number of riuulets becks & streames whose banks are beset with willowes & Alders wch giue occasion of easier fis.h.i.+ng & slooping to the water makes that [bir _crossed out_] handsome coulered bird abound wch is calld Alcedo Ispida or the King fisher. they bild in holes about grauell pitts [have their nests very full _crossed out_]

wherein [are _crossed out_] is [_above_] to bee found great quant.i.tie of small fish bones. & lay [a _crossed out_] very handsome round & as it were polished egges.

An Hobby bird[34] so calld becaus it comes in ether with or a litle before the Hobbies in the spring. of the bignesse of a Thrush coloured & paned[J] like an hawke marueliously subiet to the vertigo & and are sometimes taken in those fitts.

[34] This is evidently the Wryneck, which we now call the "Cuckoo's Mate," probably for the same reason that Browne a.s.sociates 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.

Upupa or Hoopebird[35] so named from its note a gallant marked bird wch I have often seen & tis not hard to shoote them.

[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."

Ringlestones[36] a small [bird _crossed out_] white & black bird like a wagtayle & seemes to bee some kind of motacilla marina co[=m]on about yarmouth sands. they lay their egges in the sand & s.h.i.+ngle about june and as the eryngo diggers tell mee not sett them flat b.u.t.t upright likes [_sic_] egges in [a _crossed out_] salt.

[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.

The Arcuata or curlewe frequent about the sea coast.

[_Fol. 17._] There is also an handsome tall bird Remarkably eyed and with a bill not aboue 2 inches long co[=m]only calld a stone curlewe[37] b.u.t.t the note thereof more resembleth that of a green plouer [it _crossed out_] & breeds about Thetford about the stones & s.h.i.+ngle of the Riuers.

[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.

Auoseta[38] calld [I thinck a Barker _crossed out_] shoohingg-horne [_written above_] a tall black & white bird with a bill semicircularly reclining or bowed upward so that it is not easie to conceiue how it can feed answerable vnto the Auoseta Italorum in Aldrovandus a summer marsh bird & not unfrequent in Marshland.

[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 pa.s.sing 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.

[A bird calld Barker from the note it hath _crossed out_]

A yarwhelp[39] so thought to bee named from its note a gray bird intermingled with some yellowish [whitish _written above_] fethers [the bill _crossed out_] somewhat long legged & the bill about an inch & half. esteemed a dayntie dish.

[39] This paragraph is written on the back of fol. 16. The Yarwhelp is the name by which the Black-tailed G.o.dwit, 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 G.o.dwitt," 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.

Loxias or curuirostra a bird a litle bigger than a Thrush of fine colours & prittie note [the m _crossed out_] differently from other birds, the [lower _crossed out_] upper & lower bill crossing each other.

of a very tame nature, comes about the beginning of summer. I have known them kept in cages b.u.t.t not to outliue the winter.

A kind of coccothraustes calld a [cobble _crossed out_] coble bird[40]

bigger than a Thrush, finely coloured & shaped like a Bunting [it comes _crossed out_] it is [sometimes _crossed out_] chiefly [_written above_]

seen [about _crossed out_] in su[=m]er about cherrie time.

[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.

[fol. 16 _verso._] A small bird of prey[41] [_something smeared out here_] calld a birdcatcher about the bignesse of a Thrush and linnet coloured with a longish white bill & sharpe of a very feirce & wild nature though kept in a cage & fed with flesh. [_Added after in same hand but fresher ink_] a kind of Lanius [Lanius _crossed out and written more distinctly under_].

[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 t.i.tmouse, 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 cla.s.ses it with the Laniidae, 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.

[p. 17 resumed.] A Dorhawke[42] or kind of Accipiter muscarius conceiued to haue its name from feeding upon flies & beetles. of a woodc.o.c.k colour but paned like an Hawke a very litle poynted bill. large throat.

breedeth with us & layes a maruellous handsome spotted egge. Though I haue opened many I could neuer find anything considerable in their mawes. caprimulgus.

[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 c.o.xans_, _scarabaeis vescens_, _sub vesperam volans_, _ovum specia.s.sisimum 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.

[_Fol. 18._] Auis Trogloditica[43] or Chock a small bird mixed of black & white & breeding in cony borrouges whereof the warrens are full from April to September. at which time they leaue the country. they are taken with an Hobby and a net and are a very good dish.

[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 _aenanthe_, 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.

Spermologus. [_sic_] Rookes wch by reason of the [in reason of _crossed out_] great quant.i.tie of corn feilds & Rooke groues are in great plentie the yong ones are co[=m]only eaten sometimes sold in norwich market & many are killd for their Liuers in order to cure of the Rickets.

Crowes[44] as euerywhere and also the coruus variegatus or pyed crowe with dunne & black interchangeably they come in the winter & depart in the summer & seeme to bee the same wch clusius discribeth in the faro Islands from whence perhaps these come. [they are _crossed out_] and I have seen them [_written above_] very co[=m]on in Ireland, b.u.t.t not known in many parts of England.

[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 Faroe 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.

Coruus maior Rauens in good plentie about the citty wch makes so few Kites to bee seen hereabout. they build in woods very early & lay egges in februarie.

Among the many monedulas or Jackdawes I could neuer in these parts obserue the pyrrhocorax or cornish chough with red leggs & bill to bee co[=m]only seen in Cornwall. & though there bee heere very great [num _crossed out_] store of partridges yet [not _crossed out_] the french Red leggd partridge[45] is not to bee met with [heere _crossed out_].

the Ralla or Rayle[46] wee haue counted a dayntie dish. as also no small number of Quayles. the Heathpoult[47] co[=m]on in the north is vnknown heere as also the Grous. though I haue heard some haue been seen about Lynne. the calandrier or great [_Fol. 19_] great [_sic_] crested lark Galerita I haue not met with heere though with 3 other sorts [of Larkes _written above_] the ground lark woodlark & t.i.tlark.

[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.

Stares or starlings in great numbers. most remarkable in their [great _crossed out_] numerous [_written above_] flocks [about the _crossed out_] wch I haue obserued about the Autumne when they roost at night [up _crossed out_] in the marshes in safe place upon reeds & alders. wch to obserue I went to the marshes about sunne set. where standing by their vsuall place of resort I obserued very many flocks flying from all quarters. wch in lesse than an howers s.p.a.ce came all in & settled in innumerable [quant.i.tie _crossed out_] numbers [_written below_] in a small compa.s.se.

Great varietie of finches[48] and other small birds whereof one very small [one _crossed out_] calld a whinne bird marked with fine yellow spotts & lesser than a wren. there is also a small bird called a chipper somewhat resembling the former wch comes in the spring & feeds upon the first buddings of birches & other early trees.

[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 "s.h.i.+ning 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 "_Betulae carptor_," and says that he sends a drawing to Merrett; a third mention is as follows: "That which I called a _Betulae 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."

A kind of Anthus [or _crossed out_] Goldfinch [_written above_] or fooles coat co[=m]only calld a drawe water. finely marked with red & yellowe & a white bill. wch they take with trap cages in norwich gardens & fastning a chaine about them tyed to a box of water it makes a s.h.i.+ft with bill and legge to draw up the water unto it from the litle pot hanging [abot the length of _crossed out_] by the chaine about a foote [downe _crossed out_] belowe.