INTRODUCTION. XXXV 



considered a rare summer visitant^ is now like the 

 Missel-Thrush (Turdus viscivorus), extremely common. 



THE MEAL DISTRICT. 



Ill this District may be included the entire range 

 of sand-hills between Salthouse and Hunstanton, broken 

 only by the various creeks and small harbours which 

 abound on the northern portions of the Norfolk 

 coast. The " meals,"'^ properly so called, like the 

 "marram" hills in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth, 

 are bound together and consolidated by the roots and 

 fibres of such grasses as grow vigorously on the shore 

 in spite of winds and waves. In some places broken 

 up into irregular hillocks, ranged in double rows, the 

 occasional inroads of the sea, during spring tides, are 

 marked by the flat oozy plains between. In other 

 parts they present a bold clifl-like front, rising per- 

 pendicularly from the beach to the height of several 

 feet, with here and there a deej) bay, hollowed out by 

 the waves and strewn, far above the ordinary high water 

 mark, with the debris of shells and seaweeds. 



For the most part preserved for sporting purposes, 

 the *^ meals" abound in Rabbits, which attract the 

 notice, at once, of the larger Raptorial migrants ; and 

 Stock Doves (Columba oenas), in large numbers, breed 

 in the deserted burrows, whilst a sprinkling of Wheat- 

 ears nest every year in the same locality. On these 

 barren wastes, also, so well adapted to their natural 

 habits, a large proportion of the Sand-grouse (8yrrha'ptes 

 paradoxus) that visited this county in such remarkable 



* This term, used in Norfolk to designate a wild tract of sandy- 

 hillocks lying between the shore and the cultivated lands, is 

 derived from the Anglo Saxon, mael; German, mahl, a boundary; 

 Dutch, mceilje, a pier-head; also Icelandic mol, sti'and- sands, 

 strand-stones. Ir., maol, a headland, hillock, heap. [See Nail's 

 " Handbook of Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft."] 



