THE BIRDS OF SUFFOLK. INTRODUCTION.. A CONSIDERABLEnurnber of specimens of rare birds are to be found in Suffolk, both in public and private Collections, about which no localities or particulars of any•kind are recorded. In many cases, very few if any details can now be ascertained from the length of ttme which has elapsed since these birds were taken. Many interesting facts about others are still remembered, but are in danger of being lost to science because they have never been pub- lished.* This being more and more impressed upon me bv continued observation, the thought occurred to me of en- deavouring to make a list of all the birds which I could in any way discover to have been observed, or obtained, in Suffolk. In order to make this list as complete as possible, it became necessary to examine and record the birds con- tained in such Collections as I had access to, both public and private, both great and small ; and to pick up such trustworthy information as I could get from naturalists, sportsmen, bird-stuffers, gamekeepers, and indeed from all sorts and conditions of men. It became also requisite to investigate the literature of the subject, and the information scattered in a large number of books and periodical publi- cations. This involved an amount of labour for which I was scarcely prepared, and must be my apology for a somewhat tardy performance of a promise of several years' It cannotbe too strongly impressed of them is preserved in some way or uponthosewhopossessspecimensofrare other. The nameof a bird and its date birds, or any other objects of natural of capture,as well as its locality,should history, that their value is immensely alwaysbe writtenin oron the casewhich diminishedboth in interest and from a containsit, or in a permanentcatalogue. commercialpointof view,unlessa record 278 THE Hi RDS OF SUFFOLK. standing. It would have been impossible to undertake such a task single-handed so as to do anything like justice to the subject, nor have I at',empted to do so. But I have collected all the local lists of birds that I could by any means obtain from practical naturalists in various parts of the county, and have besides availed myself of the few that had been printed •,and these taken together may be said to form the basis of the present undertaking. In order to show the distribution of the birds and their comparative numbers in different parts of Suffolk, it was obvious that the county must be divided into districts of sOmekind. The Political division of Suffolkinto East and West has been retained, as it cuts the county roughly into two halves, and also keeps the whole coast line in one of them. Thus the sea birds are principally to be found in East, and are only stragglers of greater or less frequency in West, Suffolk. Each of these regions has been sub-divided into four districts, formed in every case of combinations of two or more hundreds. For each of the eight bird-districts I have used one or mon ocal lists, printed or in MS., in which the commonest a well as the rarest species are included. Thesedistricts are, for East Suffolk,the hundreds* of— Mutford and Lothingland (including Yarmouth), Wangford ; Blything, Plomesgate; Wilford, Carlford, Loes, Colneis, Samford; Bosmere and Claydon (including Ipswich), Thred- ling, Hoxne; And for West Suffolk,the hundreds of— Hartismere, Stow ; Cosford, Babergh (including Sudbury) ; Risbridge, Lackford (including Thetford and Brandon); . For the enumeration ofthe parishes in each hundred see White's Suffolk,3rd Ed.1874. THE BIRDS OF SUFFOLK 279 (8.) Blackbourne, Thedwastre, Thingoe (including Bury St. Edmund's). In some cases it is uncertain whether a bird inserted in the following list was seen or obtained in Suffolk or in an adjoin- ing 'county. Thus Yarmouth, partly in .Norfolk partly in Suffolk, is frequently the only locality given, or even poSsible to be given, for a specimen, and in such cases it is in vain attempting to say to which of the counties the bird belongs. A specimen shot on Breydon Water, which divides the counties, must almost necessarily be included in any list either of Suffolk or. of Norfolk birds ; and it is here, in the opinion of a very competent judge, that more rare species have been obtained than on any other spot in England, several-indeed for the first time.* Thetford and Brandon, again, are partly in Norfolk ; Sudbury, partly in Essex ; and Newmarket, although some portion of it is in Suffolk, belongs mostly to Cambridgeshire. In the same way, certain rivers are boundary lines, and birds brought from them may be said to belong to both the counties which they divide. It has been sometimes perplexing how to deal with a bird reported from these places ; if the locality has been so minutely specified as to make it certain in which county the bird has been seen •or obtained, it has only been included in the list when that county is Suffolk ; but if, as is much more generally the case, a specimen is simply marked " Yarmouth," or " Near Yarmouth," arid the like, it 'is always included' and it would have to be equally included in any list ofbirds of the adjoining county. This uncertainty is of no serious importance as regards the geographical distribution of birds in England, or even in the county itself. For the eight districts given above, the following lists and other documents have been used :— For No. 1 we have the list of birds (occupying ten pages, pp. 3-13) in C. J. and James Paget's &caches of-the # SeeStevenson's _Birds of No,folk, vol. I. , p. avid. (Introduction.) 280 THE BUMS OF SUFFOLK. Natural History of Yarmouthand its Neighbourhood, printed at Yarmouth, in 1834, (8vo). This valuable catalogue has been largely supplemented and brought down to the present date by help of Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk (vol. i., 1866, vol. ii., 1870, the third and last being yet to come), as well as by notices of Norfolk birds in the Zoologist by various writers referred to in the following pages under each bird. I have also used MS.letters by Col. ,Leathes to Dr. Crowfootrelating principally to birds in this part of .Suffolk,in the possessionof the Rev. H. Hawkins. Besides these I have included under this district a great deal of valuable information most kindly supplied by two distinguished Norfolk ornitholoolsts,Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., and Mr. Stevenson, who have arso in many cases shewn me the specimens in their Collections, many obtained from Breydon Water. (2.) We have for this district NotesorJottings aboutAide- lurgh, Suffolk, relating to matters Historical, Antiquarian, Ornithological,and Entomological, by Nicholas Fenwick Hele, Surgeon,printed in London (J. R. Smith, 8vo.,1870.) The bird-list extends from p.68 to p.179,forming the greater part of the book. This very ample list has been materially a-ugmented by the courtesy of Mr. Hele, who has unreservedly communicated to me a large number of additional observations made since the book was published. Many notes on the birds of Aldeburgh have likewise been sent from time to time to the Zoologist,by the Rev. Julian Tuck, formerly of Tostock, and he has communicated others directly to me. The Rev. Herbert James, Rector of Livermere, has also given me a valuable checked list of .Aldeburghbirds seenor obtained by Capt. James. Various Aldeburgh localities are also supplied by Mr. Kerry, of 1Thrwich. — I have likewise a checkedcatalogue of birds observed at Westleton, kindly made at my request by Mr. F. Spalding, to whom I am indebted for a great amount of information relative to birds in other parts of the county, many of which were stuffed by his father, an excellent naturalist and an THE BIRDS OF SUFFOLK. 281 ardent sportsman, whose printed catalogue will be mentioned shortly. - (3.) For this district I have used two catalogues care- fully made for me by the Rev. Canon Moor, Rector of Great Bealings, and by Mr. Kerry, of Harwieh. In the former, birds found near,Woodbridge and`Great Bealings are separately marked, and in some cases notes are added ; and this 'list is augmented by information supplied by the Rev. W. H. M. Carthew, Rector of Stanningfield, long resident at Woodbridge, also by his brother, Mr. T. Carthew, of the Abbey, Woodbridge, by Mr. Ilillen, of Woodbridge, and by Mr. W. T. Phillips, of the Grange, Melton. (See belo w.) Mr. Kerry's MS list comprises an area which may be roughly Called a circle of ten miles in diameter, with Shotley for the centre •' in this are included the birds observed by him at Shotley, Walton, and Felixstowe, aud a few other places, all separately marked. (4 ) I have only one checked catalogne for this district, kindly supplied by Mr. Haward, of Bramford, who has made many remarks on the birds contained therein, and has noted their comparative rarity in the neighbourhood. For this district I have two important checked catalogues ; one by Mr. Holt Wilson, of Redgrave Hall, in which the birds are marked, and occasional notes added. This list is augmented by some additional information from the Rev. A. Foster-Melliar, who resided ,at .Redgrave ,for some time. Many of the birds are preserved at the Hall. The other list is by Mr. Clarke,formerly gamekeeper to Sir Edward Kerrison,,Bart., and comprises.birds frorn Oakley, Eye, and the neighbourhood, most of them .being in Sir -Edward's Collection. Sir Edward himself directed Clarke to a great extent in the formation of this 'catalogue, and my obligation to him is so much the greater, as he was in ill- health at the time.