48 The Field Naturalisfs Quarterly Feb. 



west, bringing with it great pellets of rain which were quite 

 unpleasant to face. Looking round for my friend with the 

 aid of my binoculars, I spotted him about a mile away to 

 leeward, sitting bolt upright, mackintosh - clad, and im- 

 movable, whilst my man, unskilled in matters aquatic, but 

 strong and willing as the proverbial horse, was vainly 

 attempting to make headway against the storm. He was 

 eventually obliged to let the boat drift ashore on what 

 fortunately happened to be a good landing-place, for had 

 they been blown into the reeds — only ten or a dozen yards 

 on either side of them — there they would have been com- 

 pelled to remain till helped out. 



A curious, and to me inexplicable, effect is caused by the 

 action of the wind on these waters. The waves running in 

 front of the wind are crossed at right angles with streaks 

 of white bubbles, and these ribbon -like streaks of foam 

 stretch quite across the broad at intervals of about 4 feet. 

 Sometimes for days after the wind has ceased the ac- 

 cumulated froth lumps up white upon the farther shore, 

 and by strangers might easily be mistaken at a distance 

 for drifts of snow, or the conspicuous feathers of a flock 

 of white-breasted sea-gulls. Hundreds of these birds fre- 

 quently come here to slake their thirst, generally alighting 

 in the middle of the broad and not round the edges, little 

 of the shore being free from reeds or rushes. The un- 

 initiated may wonder at the idea of beetle-hunting in winter, 

 but many of the water-beetles, and good things too, may be 

 taken whilst the surface of the ditches in which they reside 

 is covered with ice. By the month of March aquatic Cole- 

 optera are both numerous and active, and, moreover, more 

 easily found than at a later time of the year, when the 

 weeds have made fresh growth. The early nesting of the 

 wild duck is thus justified, for here in these beetles is a 

 natural supply of food ready for the young. 



Let me attempt to shortly describe a winter's day on Hick- 

 ling Broad, when the climatic conditions were very different. 

 It is ten o'clock in the morning, the air crisp and still, the 

 sun brightly shining, the broad strongly laid by the intense 

 frost of last night ; the stems of the reeds stand upright, 

 whipped clean of their leaves and picturesque blossom 



