104 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
“ Broad” and “Fen”’ districts, but little cultivated, were 
the fowler’s paradise, and the “ Breck” district with its 
heaths, warrens, and sheepwalks—then, as now, the 
great stronghold of the lapwing and stone-curlew— 
presented a vast champain country with scarce a fence, 
fir-slip, or plantation, over thousands of acres,* divided 
only by “mere balks” to mark the rights of tenure. 
Comparing, then, the present with the past condition 
of this great agricultural county, we can scarcely wonder 
at the effect which drainage, enclosure, and high farming 
have had upon the harmless lapwing ; nor has its perse- 
cution been confined only to the inroads of the plough, 
since the wholesale plunder of its eggs for edible pur- 
poses, must lead eventually, I fear, to its extinction 
as a resident amongst us. On this point, even as far 
back as 1836, Mr. Salmon remarks—when writing of 
the arrival of this species at Thetford, with other 
migrants in spring, “they are at present tolerably 
numerous, although, of late years, very much decreased 
in consequence of their eggs being so successfully 
gathered to a very late period during the breeding 
season by persons who are adepts in discovering their 
nests.”” In the neighbourhood of Holt, some thirty or 
forty years back, as Mr. Edwards informs me, their 
eggs were taken in considerable quantities, including 
many also of the stone-curlew, though at that time, 
from the difficulty of transit, but a small proportion 
of them reached the inland markets, yet now, on the 
same ground, only a few scattered pairs can be found 
in a season. At Westacre in like manner, and par- 
ticularly on East Walton common, the amount of eggs 
reputed to have been taken, in favourable seasons, is 
* In the 3rd edition of “ White’s Gazetteer of Norfolk,” it is 
stated that “two hundred thousand acres of commons and sandy 
heaths have been enclosed during the last ninety years.” 
