292 THE WILD-FOWLER. 



ing'. These were the falconer's and wild-fowler's first and favourite 

 places of resort. Their best sport was to be found in the wild and 

 impenetrable swamps and dykes of those counties. Thousands of 

 wild- fowl used annually to be bred among- the bulrushes, sedg-es, and 

 reeds which abounded in those parts and formed the very strong- 

 holds and nurseries of the aquatic species ; and whilst fens and moors 

 remained as nature left them, the numerous and beautiful varieties of 

 waterfowl revelled in the luxuriant feeding's of such sequestered spots, 

 which seemed specially planned by nature as the habitations and 

 breeding haunts of birds, whose home, whose resting-place and sub- 

 sistence are on the waters and in the fens and moors. In those days 

 their greatest enemy was a species of rapacious bird, which is alluded 

 to by Pliny as haunting lakes, fens, and standing waters for the pur- 

 })ose of preying upon water-fowl.* But now there is scarcely a moor 

 in the land, and only a few fens ; but such as have been drained and 

 cultivated to such an extent as to have seriously injured, if not com- 

 pletely uprooted and destroyed the retreats of the aquatic species.f 



Thus the sportsman learns with regret, that whilst the greedy 

 agriculturist has attained his ends, and converted many thousand 

 acres of swamps and fens into arable and meadow land ; such conver- 

 sion has only been attained at a partial sacrifice of one of our most 

 healthful and interesting sports, and the driving from our shores of a 

 variety of the largest, rarest, and most beautiful and useful of the 

 wild feathered tribe. But notwithstanding the heavy blows which 

 have thus been struck at our spurt, there are yet remaining in some 

 counties a few of the best and fairest retreats for wild-fowl that can 

 be imagined ; and though a good number are annually bred in those 

 places, yet in no proportion to the thousands which were reared in 

 days gone by.| 



The persecuted victims to the extension of agriculture are now 

 wary of their haunts, and hover suspiciously in the air over fens and 



* " Ilia quam tertiam fecimus aquatica.s avis circa stagna adpetit mergentis se 

 subinde donee sopitas lassatasque rapiat." — Lib. x., ca/p. iii. s. 9. 



t After all this mischief, it is coolly remarked in Fuller's " Worthies of Eng- 

 land," that, " if the plenty of birds have since been drained with the fens in this 

 county, what Lincolnshire lacks in her former fowl is supplied in flesh (more mutton 

 and beef), and a large first makes amends for a less second course." 



J The author of " Sport and its Pleasures, Physical and Gastronomical," a.d. 

 1859, asserts, without fear of contradiction, that even at the present day, thousands 

 of wildfowl are hatched annually in this countiy : an assertion in which I unhesitat- 

 ingly concur. 



