94 AN EAST COAST NATURALIST 



frozen, although freshly killed, that I balanced one 

 on my hand on the tip of its bill, the tail and feet 

 remaining straight up and immovable. An old 

 gunner described the ducks " the old hard- weathers " 

 as flocking around the neighbourhood by " waggon- 

 loads." 



To hear the worn-out gunners discourse upon the 

 weather and the wildfowl of the old days, one might 

 suppose that of late winters have deteriorated in the 

 matter of frost and snow, instead of occasional winters 

 being severe as ever, with others open and mild 

 between. It is natural they should, with that 

 privilege allowed to increasing age, go on from 

 imagining to believing that the old was altogether 

 so different from the new. Still, wild ducks in 

 ordinary seasons are scarcer; and there may be 

 even something in the statement that since the 

 decoys fell into disuse, wildfowl have fallen off in 

 numbers the feeding, the privacy, and other 

 circumstances having also become matters of the 

 past. 



" In the old days," said a gunner to me, " the ice 

 formed on Breydon four or five inches thick in as 

 many days." This was when even at low water the 

 majority of the flats still remained submerged 



