188 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



A SUMMER'S DAY ON THE BROADS. 



Choosing for our excursion a bright sunny day in 

 June or July, we enter the broad by a long narrow dyke 

 communicating directly with the navigable river, and as 

 the boatman pulls slowly through the narrow channels, 

 or rests under the shade of the waving reeds, let us 

 carefully note the various objects of interest which 

 at this season present themselves to the eye of the 

 naturalist. Here, as in all these peculiar localities, 

 excepting where the river flows through them, as at 

 Hickling and Barton, the water is everywhere extremely 

 shallow, and where the Confervce and other aquatic plants 

 have not coated the surface, clear enough to show 

 the myriads of small fry passing in shoals over the 

 weedy bottom ; these fresh- water lagoons forming 

 the natural nurseries of the bream, roach, pike, 

 and other fish found in our Norfolk rivers. As we 

 traverse the broad from end to end, we pass through 

 a series of small canals, just wide enough for boats 

 to go up and down, lined on either side by the 

 young reeds, in all the richness of their summer green, 

 with their delicate feathery tops bending to the 

 slightest movement of the passing breeze. How grateful 

 to the eye is the bright fresh verdure, after watching 

 the sand-martins on the glowing stream, or peering up 

 into the sunny sky to follow the snipe on its airy round. 

 Here and there the monotony of the green walls is 

 relieved by the pretty blossom of the flowering-rush 

 (Butomus uwibellatus), the bright yellow of the water- 

 iris (Iris pseud-acorus) , the bloom of the sedge (Carex 

 riparia), or the lofty stems of the common bullrush 

 (Scirpus lacustris), with their brown heads looking like 

 an artillerist's rammer. On all sides, the chitty, chitty, 

 chit, chit, clia, cha, of the garrulous sedge-bird (Salicaria 



