[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 passage 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 fishing & 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 quantitie of small fish bones. & lay 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 associates 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.