xlvi 



INTRODUCTION. 



point of the coast is a specimen of the Great- Shearwater 

 (Puffinus major), in the Lynn Museum, the only one known 

 to have occurred in Norfolk. A novel mode of netting 

 most kinds of shore birds, suggested by the shallow 

 waters and flat shores of the Wash, has been occa- 

 sionally adopted here of late years with much success. 

 Long nets stretched on poles, about six feet high, are 

 placed in double lines upon the sands towards dusk, one 

 line below high water mark and the other beyond the 

 reach of the tide. A dark still night is most favourable 

 for this sport as the nets are not only invisible, but are in 

 no danger of being blown down. In this manner some 

 eighty or ninety birds have been taken at one time, 

 having struck the nets in their nocturnal flight, and 

 become hopelessly entangled. Even Skylarks and Dunlins 

 (Tringa variabilis) are not unfrequently captured, in 

 spite of the meshes of the nets being large, and when 

 gathered in the morning, a large proportion of the birds 

 are secured alive, including Godwits, Knots, Plovers, 

 Woodcocks, Oyster-catchers, Sheldrakes, and other fowl, 

 with many Gulls. 



No wonder, on this portion of the coast, where the 

 sea appears almost to meet reclamation half-way by 

 a sort of voluntary abdication, that great engineering 

 skill and vast capital should have been devoted to this 

 object. Much has already been accomplished, although 

 the magnificent scheme for which the Estuary Company 

 was originally formed, namely to make a straight 

 channel from Lynn to the sea, and reclaim not less than 

 one hundred and fifty thousand acres from the Wash 

 has been restricted within far narrower limits ; probably 

 not more than fifty thousand acres being now contem- 

 plated.* Even of this quantity scarcely a tithe has been 



* For the above facts respecting the proposed and actual 

 achievements of the Estuary Company I am indebted to Mr. 

 George Webster, of Lynn. 



