A Week in the Country of the Broads. 185 



Horning my head-quarters. It is situated on the River Bure, 

 some miles N.E. of Norwich, and at the time of my visit but 

 few entomologists had systematically worked the district. I 

 had anticipated much pleasure from capturing rare lepidoptera, 

 but I pictured the locality as being flat and uninteresting. I 

 was agreeably disappointed with the physical features of the 

 country, for, although in the valley of the Bure the ground 

 is flat enough, yet it is margined by hilly and well wooded 

 country, and the marshes themselves do not present the dreary 

 aspect of Thames marshes, but are broken up by clumps of 

 trees, here called " carrs," consisting of alders, birch, buckthorn, 

 and sallows, varied by beds of reeds, mingled with reed-mace, 

 and by dykes bordered by the waterdock, the purple loose- 

 strife, the meadow-sweet, and the flowering rush. Here and 

 there too are windmills used for pumping the water from the 

 marshes into the dykes and rivers, for much of the surround- 

 ing ground is below the level of the stream. The Bure itself 

 is a fine wide, though sluggish, river, margined by all sorts of 

 aquatic plants, among which the bull-rush, or bolder, as it is 

 here called, rises to the height of several feet. The tide, so 

 far up as Horning, rises and falls some eight or nine inches. 

 A typical view of the Broad Country is from the high road 

 between Wroxham and Horning, just past the church of 

 Hoveton, or Hofton as the country people call it. From this 

 point one can see parts of both Great and Little Hoveton 

 Broads, the windings of the Bure enlivened by the tan-sails 

 of the barges or wherries. On the two broads I have named, 

 as indeed on other broads, the Typha angustifolia, or lesser 

 reedmace, seems to be extending in all directions, threatening 

 entirely to overgrow them. On the larger of these broads the 

 blackheaded gull breeds, and I am told, in increasing numbers 

 since the Birds Protection Act has been in force. 



Not far from the village of Horning are the remains of 

 Holme, or St. Benet's Abbey, founded, it is said, in the year 

 800, and raised into a mitred abbey in 1020 by Canute, who 

 strongly fortified it. 



The inhabitants of Horning viewed with considerable amuse- 

 ment, bordering on contempt, my green butterfly net, and used 

 to enquire whether I was going " mingen-catching," but yet 

 the marsh-men were not above collecting " cankers " for me — 

 the larvje of Papilio Machaon and Chcerocampa Elpenor — 

 the Swallow-tailed Butterfly and the Elephant Hawk Moth. 

 The former of these they said they detected by the smell 

 emitted by them when disturbed by the mowing down of their 

 food plant, an odour like decaying apples. As regards the 

 food plant of the larvae of Machaon, it is frequently stated to 



