104 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



"Broad" and "Fen" districts, but little cultivated, were 

 the fowler's paradise, and the " Breck " district with its 

 heaths, warrens, and sheepwalks then, as now, the 

 great stronghold of the lapwing and stone-curlew 

 presented a vast champain country with scarce a fence, 

 fir-slip, or plantation, over thousands of acres,* divided 

 only by " mere balks " to mark the rights of tenure. 

 Comparing, then, the present with the past condition 

 of this great agricultural county, we can scarcely wonder 

 at the effect which drainage, enclosure, and high farming 

 have had upon the harmless lapwing ; nor has its perse- 

 cution been confined only to the inroads of the plough, 

 since the wholesale plunder of its eggs for edible pur- 

 poses, must lead eventually, I fear, to its extinction 

 as a resident amongst us. On this point, even as far 

 back as 1836, Mr. Salmon remarks when writing of 

 the arrival of this species at Thetford, with other 

 migrants in spring, "they are at present tolerably 

 numerous, although, of late years, very much decreased 

 in consequence of their eggs being so successfully 

 gathered to a very late period during the breeding 

 season by persons who are adepts in discovering their 

 nests." In the neighbourhood of Holt, some thirty or 

 forty years back, as Mr. Edwards informs me, their 

 eggs were taken in considerable quantities, including 

 many also of the stone-curlew, though at that time, 

 from the difficulty of transit, but a small proportion 

 of them reached the inland markets, yet now, on the 

 same ground, only a few scattered pairs can be found 

 in a season. At Westacre in like manner, and par- 

 ticularly on East Walton common, the amount of eggs 

 reputed to have been taken, in favourable seasons, is 



* In the 3rd edition of " White's Gazetteer of Norfolk," it is 

 stated that " two hundred thousand acres of commons and sandy 

 heaths have been enclosed during the last ninety years." 



