2 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



amongst them would think he were in England, if 

 it happened to be a fine sunny day. These arid 

 wastes form vast warrens for rabbits always, whilst 

 over them, from April to October, roam bands of 

 the great plover or stone-curlew, whose wailing, 

 melancholy cries are in artistic unison with their 

 drear desolation. The country is very flat : no hill 

 can be seen anywhere around, but the ground rises 

 somewhat, from the river on the northern side, and 

 this and a few minor undulations of the sand look 

 almost like hills, against the general dead level. I 

 have seen the same effect on the great bank of the 

 Chesil, and read of it, I think, in the desert of 

 Sahara. These steppes on the one side of the river 

 pass, on the other, into a fine sweep of moorland, 

 the lonely road through which is bordered, on one 

 side only, by a single row of gaunt Scotch firs. West- 

 wards, towards Cambridgeshire, the sand-country, as 

 it may be termed, passes, gradually, into the fenlands, 

 which, in a modified, or, rather, transitional form, lie 

 on either side the Lark, as far as Icklingham itself. 

 The Lark, which, for the greater part of its limited 

 course, is a fenland stream, rises a little beyond Bury 

 (the St. Edmunds is never added hereabouts), and 

 enters the Ouse near Littleport. It is quite a small 

 river ; but though its volume, after the first twelve 

 miles or so, does not increase to any very appre- 

 ciable extent, the high artificial banks, through 

 which, with a view to preventing flooding, it is 

 made to flow, after entering the fenlands proper, 

 give it a much more important appearance, and this 

 is enhanced by the flatness of the country on either 

 side : a flatness, however, which does not — nor does 



