PLOVER NETTING IN THE FENS. pi | 
on Thetford warren; a female “having the usual 
markings clearly depicted by light and dark shades.” 
The following notes on plover-netting, as still prac- 
tised on the opposite shores of the Wash, have been 
most obligingly supplied me by Mr. T. W. Foster, 
of the Wisbeach Museum, and from the novelty of the 
method described, and the gradual relinquishment of 
such arts and devices at the present day, cannot fail to 
be interesting to many of my readers :— 
Prover NeEttTinG IN THE FEns. 
The capture of birds by means of a net has long been 
practised by fowlers in the fens of Cambridgeshire, near 
Wisbeach, and has, in days gone by, been a very lucrative 
occupation. The birds so taken are principally waders, 
and include dunlins, knots, ruffs and reeves, redshanks, 
lapwings, golden plover, and occasionally curlews and 
black and bar-tailed godwits. On one occasion within 
the last twelve years a small flock of nine dusky sand- 
pipers or spotted redshanks (Totanus fuscus) was so 
obtained, and I purchased them alive. The Zoological 
Society’s Gardens have frequently been enriched by 
fen-birds which have been caught by nets in this 
locality. The nets are brought into requisition twice in 
the year, viz., at Michaelmas (September and October) 
and Lady-day (March and April) at which periods the 
birds visit the washes. I personally know one fowler 
who has taken as many as four dozen and nine lapwings 
at one time, and twenty-four dozen in the course of a 
single day. The market price of this species is sixpence 
each.* Guyhirn and Whittlesea washes were at one time 
* Although, compared with the golden plover, not ranking very 
high as a delicacy for the table, the lapwing appears to have been 
greatly esteemed in former times. In the “ Account Book” of the 
Purser of the priory of Durham (1530 to 1534), we find “3 plovers 
