6o 



BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



upon the insects therein. They are cheery companions to 

 the solitary reed-cutter, as he works boot-deep in the icy 

 water. He often sees them run along the fallen amber 

 stalks, moving like a wagtail, with tail held straight out 

 behind, picking insects from the water. And the fenman 

 knows they will build close by, for they never wander far 

 from the place where they were bred and born. 



The reed-pheasants are hardy, sociable little fellows ; in- 

 deed, in nesting time they often, like red-shanks and pee- 

 wits, build close to one another — one " coys " the other, 

 as the solitary fenmen say; but the hard winter of 1890-91 

 was very fatal to these little fen-birds, and the following 

 spring but two nests were found in a district most dear 

 to them. Yet they are not extinct, and may still be seen 

 in the Broads wherever the swampy crops grow thick in 

 winter and sparsely in spring. And, like the fenman, they 

 are mysterious, ever seeking the seclusion of the reed-bed. 

 The reed-pheasant is, after all, the last link with an earlier 

 age, a period when the fenman lived in inaccessible morasses, 

 with no other companions than the flickering will-o'-the-wisps 

 and the watery tribes of birds whose strange voices filled his 

 soul with a native poetry that increased his natural melan- 

 choly and superstition. 



REED-PHEASANTS AND NEST. 



