88 NATURAL HISTORY 
posite side is about seven hundred and four yards, 
and the breadth of the southwest end about four 
hundred and fifty-six yards. ‘This measurement, 
which I caused to be made with good exactness, 
gives an area of about sixty-six acres, exclusive of 
a large irregular arm at the northeast corner, which 
we did not take into the reckoning. 
On the face of this expanse of waters, and per- 
fectly secure from fowlers, lie all day long, in the 
winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and wid- 
geons, of various denominations, where they preen, 
and solace and rest themselves till towards sunset, 
when they issue forth in little parties (for in their 
natural state they are all birds of the night) to feed 
in the brooks and meadows, returning again with 
the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm 
or two more, and were it planted round with thick 
covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might 
make a valuable decoy. 
Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its 
water, nor the resort of various and curious fowls, » 
nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can render this 
mere so remarkable as the great quantity of coins 
that were found in its bed about forty years ago.* 
* Old people remember to have heard their fathers and grand- 
fathers say, that in dry summers and windy weather, pieces of 
money were sometimes found round the verge of Wolmer Pond ; 
_ and tradition had inspired the foresters with a notion that the 
bottom of the lake contained great stores of treasure. During 
the spring and summer of 1740 there was little rain; and the 
following summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that many 
springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular, whose bed 
became as dusty as the surrounding heaths and wastes. This 
favourable juncture induced some of the forest cottagers to begin 
a search, which was attended with such success that all the la- 
bourers in the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and with spades 
and hoes turned up great part of that large area. Instead of pots 
