38 APRIL IN BROADLANV. 



rot, and then to sink beneath, year by year this accumulation makes fresh soil, 

 and so as time rolls on the Broads become more circumscribed in area. 



Thus it is that some of the smaller broads are now scarcely bigger than fish- 

 ponds. Gradually, but surely, if imperceptibly, the swampy margins have ex- 

 tended. Then appropriation commences. Ditches are cut, and pump-mills are 

 erected. Years long gone by the skeleton pump-mill did nearly all the work, 

 then the tower-shaped article came into vogue. 



Powerful steam mills are now found cheaper to work and more effective. And 

 thus has.it happened that the erstwhile resort of snipe and bittern is covered with 

 waving grain ; and the partridge gleans amid the corn-stubble above spots where 

 the rudd and the bream, not many years before, were rooting and grubbing after 

 Jarvse and mollusca, amongst the sub-aqueous stems of reed and bullrush. Changes 

 similar to these have reclaimed the fens from a chaos of waters to fertile acres, 

 where sleek, fat kine deem life well worth the living ; and no sooner -does the 

 heavy rainfall swamp the lower corners, and fill the ditches, than the sails of the 

 quaint old mills are placed before the wind, and the excessive water is pumped, or 

 otherwise thrown by a huge water-wheel, into the sluices connected with the slug- 

 gish river. By this means miles of marshes, separated from the tidal river only by 

 a bank or ' wall,' themselves below the level of flood-tide, are kept free from inun- 

 dation. 



As we slowly scull across the rippling waters of the Broad, we are roused from 

 our rather pessimistic reverie by a noisy tumult as of quarrelsome birds : a cuckoo 

 skims across a reed-bed to the terror or annoyance of some marsh-tits that had 

 been busy in among them. They join a mixed mob of tits and finches that are 

 already at its heels. Have they mistaken it for a hawk, or is it a protestation 

 against the cuckoo's fondness for usurping the rights of their little homesteads ? 

 A pair of black-headed buntings pass just above head. Several grebes are dis- 

 porting themselves in the water ahead of us. What a merry life is theirs when 

 unmolested! Their plumage is now at its best. Observe them through these 

 glasses. What curious crested heads of white and brown and black ; and what 

 slender snake-like necks ! One or two evidently are fishing. Let us lay-to beside 

 this tiny promontory on our right and watch them. There is a stake, left by 

 some angler, who no doubt had a mind to erect a { land-mark ' to some propitious 

 perch hole : tie the painter to it. 



And now whilst discussing luncheon we shall have a better chance of observ- 

 ing the birds around us, for nothing conduces more to their hiding than the dodg- 

 ing to and fro of suspicious overlookers. What appetites the Broadland air gives 



