166 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



large species of rail. Failing to find sufficient shelter, 

 it would take refuge in one corner, and crouching down 

 on its tarsi, face the intruder with the most peculiar, 

 not to say comical expression. As in Mr. Gould's clever 

 drawing in his ie Birds of Great Britain," the head and 

 neck were drawn back into its shoulders, with the throat 

 and beak raised, almost perpendicularly, whilst from near 

 the base of its sharp mandibles, a pair of keen eyes were 

 directed forwards and downwards, which, from whatever 

 side approached, seemed always fixed on one's own. 

 This bird was still in good health, though in rather 

 ragged plumage from its restless habits, when I last 

 saw it on the 1st of October. 



Hitherto I have spoken only of the bittern as a 

 denizen of the broads, but there is reason to believe that 

 it was formerly even more abundant still in the Hock- 

 wold and Feltwell fens in the south-western part of the 

 county. There, as Mr. Alfred Newton was informed in 

 1853 by William Spencer,* a thatcher, at Feltwell, whose 

 great-grandfather, grandfather, and uncle have all been 

 gamekeepers in that neighbourhood, " bottleybumps "f 

 used to be extremely plentiful, selling like snipe for one 

 shilling a piece. His grand-father used to have one 

 roasted every Sunday for dinner, and they would lie in 

 the sedge (which was in places five or six feet high), till 

 they were nearly trodden upon. They were most com- 

 mon about Popplelot, and his uncle once shot five in one 

 day. Drainage, however, and an extensive reclamation 

 of marsh ground has long ago expelled them from these 

 once favourite haunts, with the ruffs, redshanks, and 

 black-terns, their former companions, and now only an 

 occasional straggler is seen during the winter months. 



* The same man whose evidence as to the heron nesting on 

 sallow bushes, in Feltwell fen, has been given at p. 132, note. 



f Bottle-bump, or Bottleybump, a provincial name for the 

 bittern, so termed, no doubt, from its peculiar cry. 



