J. \NUARY 7W BE OAT) LA ND. 1 1 



We have our skates with us, and being assured by a passing rustic that ' Yow doan't 

 need tu fare, 'bor, for it's friz hard enuf tu bear a dicky!' we sit down upon the 

 stubbly broad-margin and adjust our 'skeets,' as the communicative native terms 

 them. A few rather awkward movements, for it is long since we tried them, put 

 us at our ease, and we launch out upon the transparent surface. At this moment 

 an individual with a parsonical appearance glides swiftly round a reedy promon- 

 tory, merrily salutes us, takes a right turn, and hies away as on wings of wind. 

 Eeassured, we strike out boldly, and are soon rapidly gliding in the direction he 

 has taken. 



How bare is the Broad-margin of vegetation ! Nothing remains now of the 

 broad-leaved water-lilies, whose snow-white petals last summer formed such a de- 

 lightful foreground to the phalanx of emerald-green reeds, and the taller bulrushes, 

 whose big brown ' pokers ' flung their shadows over them into the limpid waters 

 where the lilies rested. The yellow iris has left nothing but its brown broken 

 stubble upon the once-time boggy, but now hard-frozen * rond,' where the alders 

 in the background point upwards their leafless twigs. See ! there are several cole- 

 tits busily hunting in the stunted branches in search of such larvas or little insects 

 as may have hidden in the bark-chinks for a winter's nap. What nimble bird- 

 acrobats they are ! Now hanging topsy-turvy, now running head downwards as 

 the humour or occasion prompts them, it is small matter to them in what position 

 they hunt their sleeping prey. High overhead passes a harrier of some kind he 

 is a Hereward in bird -land! 



Observe yonder tiny red-brown birdies busy among those plumy reed-tops. 

 They are the bearded-tits, or ' reed-pheasants ' of the Norfolk natives. Hardly 

 must they fare now the aphides and the dipterous insects are dead or hybernating 

 in more protected locations, and the tiny molluscs that crawled up the verdant 

 rush-stems are in safe hiding in the depths below. They are glad now to glean 

 the seeds of the withering Broad-vegetation, among whose leafy recesses they were 

 cradled. Let us hope Jack Frost may deal gently, and that the evil eye of the 

 skulking gunner may not glance down i sights ' at them. Many familiar birds we 

 miss altogether; the rails and moorhens have sought the sheltered ditches; and 

 the great crested grebes have gone south for the winter, for what good were it to 

 stay when the little fry have sought the deepest recesses of the Broad, and the 

 ice-bound surface forbids them diving in search of them ? The coots, held back 

 until well-nigh starved, hoping against hope for a break in the long-continued 

 frost they, too, have departed, but are content to pick up a scanty living in the 

 salt waters of the tidal estuary, persecuted, alas ! at every turn by the merciless 



