140 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



of her brood close at hand.'^ On the following- day I 

 visited Thompson mere, which lies within easy flight of 

 Stanford water, and, including some small pools or 

 " pulk"-holes connected with -it, extends over fifty acres. 

 Here, also, the various species of fowl have ample pro- 

 tection and shelter for their nests. On the side skirting 

 the roadway the margin is somewhat bare, but to the 

 left, at the upper end, a furzy common slopes down to 

 the water's edge where wild ducks and teal nest under 

 the bushes ; and the full length of the banks opposite 

 is broadly fringed with beds of reeds and rushes, with 

 rough grassy mounds, extending to the arable and heath 

 land beyond, from whence one looks down upon the 

 fish ponds or pools that indent the shore, each circled 

 with a rich growth of sedge, flag, and reed, whilst 

 the water is scarcely visible through the profusion of 

 lilies and other surface loving plants. There is no 

 island here, but a small patch of land at the end next 

 the heath is thickly planted with young firs and shrubs, 

 attractive to pheasants as well as fowl, and divided only 

 from the mere by a wide belt of reeds. Much, of course, 

 has been done of late years to adapt both these localities 

 to the requirements of a preserve for fish as well as 

 fowl ; and these natural meres which, like those of 

 Wretham heath, were affected by drought, have their 

 waters now artificially kept up, with the means at hand for 

 drawing off either one or the other in a few hours' time. 



* Mr. Salmon speaks of one nest of eggs being " within a few 

 days of hatching" as early as the 10th of May, but in two other 

 instances he did not find the young hatched till the 1st and 6th 

 of June ; a difference to be accounted for perhaps in some cases by 

 a first clutch of eggs being taken, St. John, in Morayshire, found 

 nests of this species, with eggs, on the 19th and 28th of May ; and 

 in Denmark, Mr. Dresser (" Birds of Europe") states that the eggs 

 are laid from the 2nd to the 26th of May ; and a nest of eight eggs 

 had been found as late as the 24th of July, 



