NOVEMBER IN BROADLAND. 121 



they rearrange their already tidy plumage, then playfully dodging each other for 

 a moment, take to wing, and make for some other Broad. The grebes do not appear 

 so plentiful as they have been: on the approach of frost, when the skaters will 

 make their advent here, they will have betaken themselves to the tidal estuaries, 

 where food may yet be had. 



What big bird could it be that, disturbed by our oar crackling in among the 

 dry reeds, now took to wing, and with a sharp harsh cry hurried away ? We recog- 

 nise in its brown mottled plumage, and long, thick-ruffed neck, that rare East 

 Anglian outlaw, the common bittern, now, alas ! no longer deserving its distinctive 

 title, for by the draining of its native reed-swamps and marshes, to which it resorted 

 in the breeding-season, they no longer afford it that secrecy and protection which 

 seemed so necessary to its perfect happiness. Jim Trett, or any of his kindred, 

 would have been delighted to have made so close an acquaintance with the bird as 

 we have, and to have levelled their fowling-pieces at it. ' Bottlebump,' as the fen- 

 men name it, usually feeds at night, and is extremely loth to take to wing by 

 day, suspiciously eyeing intruders through the labyrinth of reeds, and skulking 

 off noiselessly at their approach. We have been fortunate in seeing the fellow in 

 his dull, flagging kind of flight. There are few small creatures that fly, swim, or 

 crawl that ' bottlebump ' despises when downright hungry. The last eggs of the 

 bittern found in Broadland were taken in the sixties. We catch, of course, an 

 occasional glimpse of coots and moorhens, and pay scant heed to them, or the snipe 

 which frequently pass squeaking overhead. Some tufted ducks, a couple of inter- 

 esting shovellers, and a redthroated diver, seeking a change diet of young roach, 

 severally engage our attention. 



We push the boat up into a little sluice, at the end of which a kind of dam 

 has been banked up. A rather large ditch on the other side is kept within bounds 

 by a quaint, skeleton-like drainage pump-mill that throws its superfluous water 

 into the Broad. We step ashore on the boggy soil, and scramble up to take a 

 closer inspection of the curious structure. Its machinery is simple: the mill- sails 

 when at work whirl round as the winds play on them. By a simple crank adjust- 

 ment the ' box ' goes up and down, now fast, now slow, as the rod is affected by the 

 movement of the sails. They are revolving but slowly now, and for want of oil 

 strange rasping and screeching noises emanate from the machinery. In the water 

 below it the aquatic plants reflect their broken and dishevelled remnants; the 

 sedges are crumpled and drooping, not a little red or blue dot of a wild flower is 

 there to relieve the dull monotony of coloration everything is brown and sere; 

 the only bright colours are the yellow willow-leaves floating upon the surface, 



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