xliv INTRODUCTION. 



species. A curious circumstance also may be here noted, 

 arising out of the altered condition of the marshes, and 

 the closing of Decoys once profitable enough in these 

 parts. Of late years, since both the Holkham and 

 Langham Decoys have ceased to be worked, flocks of 

 Wigeon (Anas ^penelope) have resorted to the lake, in 

 the park, during the day time, a few only appearing 

 at first, but their numbers increasing during each 

 successive winter. 



With the subject of reclamation, however, we must 

 return once more to Hunstanton, and following the 

 deeply indented shores of the Wash, continue our 

 inspection of the coast line, from Heacham, Snettisham, 

 and Wolferton, to Lynn harbour. One main feature is 

 apparent throughout, the extreme shallowness of the 

 water ; so much so that, as Walter White happily 

 remarks, " if you chance to be studying the view when 

 the tides are at the lowest, you might fancy the land 

 was gaining on the sea." Immeiise tracts of level 

 sands, stretching far into the distance, are left bare for 

 hours ; but never actually dry the soft slippery surface 

 is a very paradise for the Gulls, and dark objects scarcely 

 distinguishable by the naked eye will be found, through 

 a glass, to be busy cockle gatherers with their carts and 

 horses, who at ebb tide follow the retreating waves for 

 nearly a mile and a-half. Only slight ban-iers, whether 

 natural or artificial, are here needed, and banks of shingle, 

 bordering the sands, are backed, as at Snettisham, by a 

 wide breadth of grassy " Denes,'* sloping gradually away 

 from the" sea and sparkling with blown sand and minute 

 pebbles. A dreary district this, and one from which 

 the eye turns inland with a sense of relief to the rich 

 marshes, hedgerows and long grassy lanes that bespeak 

 a more habitable country. 



Quitting, then, altogether the sands and ^^ Denes," 

 the more inland country between Hunstanton and Lynn, 



