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XIX. 



NETTING BIRDS ON THE WASH. 



PROBABLY no other art, sport, or handicraft which has 

 been handed down from the earliest times has more 

 rapidly decayed under the influence of nineteenth cen- 

 tury civilisation than that of " Wildfowling." The 

 drainage of the fens, and the invention and improvement 

 of fire-arms, have rung the death-knell of duck decoys, 

 and driven the hordes of wildfowl that used to swarm 

 every winter in the low-lying eastern counties to more 

 remote and congenial haunts outside the British Islands. 

 Fortunately for birds as well as for naturalists, however, 

 there are extensive areas of mudflat round the Wash and 

 in other maritime districts where the reclaiming and 

 " improving " hand of man is set at defiance, and where 

 the wildfowl are left in undisputed possession of their 

 ancient haunts. Let us take a peep at the mudflats of 

 the Wash during the late autumn months, when these 

 dreary, desolate sands are replete with bird-life. If the 

 birds were absent from this wide expanse of sand and 

 mud, nothing could be more desolate or dreary. The 



