BIRDS turnip fields near the coast is often perfectly amazing. But when November draws to a close, the rush of land birds is over, though a few small flocks of grey crows, woodcock and sky-larks come dropping in for many weeks afterwards.' ' This ' east to west ' autumnal immigration, to which we owe the wonderful influx of rare species from central Europe, and even from the trans-Caspian, which visit us, and these sudden ' rushes,' form one of the most remarkable phenomena in the whole range of natural science. The nature of the impulse which initiates the movement, and the instinct (?) which guides it, are still as little understood as ever, but much light has been thrown upon the route pursued, and the circumstances under which the journey is under- taken, by the investigations carried out by the Migration Committee of the British Association as interpreted by Mr. Eagle Clarke,^ and the tangible results are the number of rare species which they have brought us, among which may be enumerated the barred warbler, icterine warbler, blue-throated and aquatic warblers, the great-spotted cuckoo, Pallas's warbler, red-breasted flycatcher, and many others, all of which we owe to these autumnal flights. Decoys were numerous in Norfolk early in the present century, and an interesting account of their working and construction will be found in Lubbock's Fauna of Norfolk, edit, ii., pp. 134, 220 ; also in the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, voL ii. p. 538. There are several decoys in the county still worked in an amateur way, but I believe the only one now systematically carried on for profit is that on Fritton Lake, belonging to Sir Savile Crossley. Here in the past season (October, 1899, to February, 1900, inclusive), which has been a very favourable one, 2,685 ducks and mallard, 21 teal, 13 wigeon, and 2 pintails have been taken. Very few teal are taken here now, and the season ends too early for the spring migration of wigeon ; one or two pintails are generally taken, and an occasional goosander ; coots also sometimes figure in the returns ; but I think this is merely owing to the accident of their being in the pipe at the time the fowl are driven up. If the county of Norfolk is the possessor of an exceptionally rich avi-fauna, it is equally fortunate in having produced a long line of naturalists, who have left most valuable information for the benefit of their successors. The first glimpse of Norfolk ornithology is obtained in the L' Estrange Household Book as early as the year 15 19. Some hundred and fifty years later follows Sir Thomas Browne's Account of Birds found in Norfolk, written about the year 1663 (not published till 1835), which for accuracy and shrewdness of observation has never been surpassed. A long period intervened, and in 1826 appeared Sheppard and Whitear's C^/^/og-«^ of Norfolk and Suffolk Birds, followed in 1829 by A List of Birds found in Norfolk, by John Hunt, the author of an illustrated British Ornithology, never completed ; a Sketch of the Natural History of Yarmouth, by C. J. and James Paget, in 1834 ; Observations on the Fauna of ' Gurney and Southwell, Tram. Norf. and Nor. Nat. Sac, iv. p. 262.
- See Report British Association (Liverpool Meeting), 1896, pp. 451-477.
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