32 A BIRD COLLECTOR’S MEDLEY. 
blue. \Ve could not discover that the Shoveller was breeding, though I believe 
it has done so since, nor could we find any traces of the Bearded Tit. 
Ten years later, chance bringing me within reach of Yarmouth, I decided 
to pay a visit to the more Eastern Broads. Breydon was to be the centre of 
attraction, and we reached Yarmouth on September roth. Ill fortune dogged 
us from the start. While putting our guns together after breakfast, something 
went wrong with one of F 
’s triggers, and it was arranged that he should 
proceed to the nearest gunsmith’s, while we chartered a boat for the day. The 
boathouses were said to be close at hand, and we started forth under the 
guidance of the “ boots.’”’ Some boathouses were close by, but they had no 
available boats, and we wandered on for a considerable distance through 
crooked lanes and alleys before we at last secured a suitable craft. We then 
sent the ‘‘ boots” back to the hotel to bring up the missing gun, but the latter, 
who had returned earlier than was expected, and had grown tired of waiting, 
had started forth to track us on his own account, and by the time he was 
retrieved from the above-mentioned network of alleys, we were informed that 
we had missed the proper tide. Forth we went nevertheless, and, mingling at 
first in the stream of wherries, pleasure steamers and barges, got through the 
stone bridge with some difficulty, and found ourselves at length on the ‘‘ Queen 
of the Broads.” 
What sort of sport Breydon may be able to afford on occasions, I am 
unable to say. Doubt!ess its geographical position, and its vast muds, almost 
too vast in places, attract rarities at times; and when there is a migration on, 
there may even be good shooting if the tide is right. For us the tide was 
wrong, there was no migration on, and no rarities were present, and the 
shooting was positively nil; three guns between them never fired a shot. A 
quarter of a mile from the bridge we might, had we chosen, have raked a small 
flock of Dunlin, and by the look on our boatman’s face when we didn’t fire, we 
euessed that he had no expectation of meeting many birds beyond. These 
Dunlin had already run the gauntlet of another boatful, and left one of their 
number winged upon the muds, and the whole party were now standing up 
having shots at it, one after the other, without any apparent effect. After the 
fusillade had lasted several minutes, and as the bird seemed none the worse, 
the boatman was at length instructed to take off his boots, and run it down on 
the muds. This he did, though with no effusive readiness, while we lay by and 
watched the whole performance ; it was the most exciting episode of the day. 
We then stuck all but permanently on the mud, and, when we did get off, it 
was decided that we should land and walk along the sea-wall, while the man 
worked his way through a shallow channel and met us higher up. Near the 
