BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS 343 



the acres of brown reed, and bulrush stems, where the over- 

 ripe ' pokers ' of the reed-mace nod and dance to the rough 

 hustling of the north wind. Floating on these pools, some 

 asleep, some preening their feathers, and others pulling at 

 the sodden vegetation beneath them, are scores of mallard 

 with glossy green heads and their more sober mates. Maybe 

 a shoveller or a bunch of teal come into view, or a diving 

 bird pops up into notice. Now and again you may see the 

 grebe, — the great-crested grebe, more abundant during the 

 summer, and the gossander. Any one living in the neigh- 

 bourhood, who follows up these waters from day to day, may 

 see — and too often shoots — even less commonplace visitors, 

 some vagrant buzzard or peregrine falcon keenly bent on 

 harrying the wild-fowl ; some wing-wearied northern diver, or 

 a rare gull, a Bewick's swan, or a skulking bittern. Rigor- 

 ously protected by the riparian owners and their gamekeepers 

 from the more vulgar guns of the ' irregular musketeers,' the 

 'outside' village gunners, most of these unfortunate rarer 

 birds fall to the share of these so-called protectors, and 

 become candidates for niches in collections. 



One of these Broadland gamekeepers punting around will 

 discourse of sundry ' rare 'uns ' that have visited his beat 

 since wintry weather obtained. There were flocks of wild 

 swan among them, a half dozen little auks driven in, weary, 

 from the sea. A velvet scoter has been hobnobbing with 

 a parcel of ' mussel ducks ' (common scoters), and had appa- 

 rently been diving for small swan-mussels or ' clams ' as he 

 calls them ; a couple of ' sawyers ' (red-breasted mergansers) 

 have successfully evaded him, although a 'sawbill' (goosander) 

 had not been so fortunate ; a flock of pintail ducks had 

 joined themselves to the ' duck ' (mallard), and he had put 

 up a bunch of golden-eye only that morning as he came 

 'athort Hicklin" Broad. He had observed a 'game-hawk' 



