306 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



testimony of such a witness with no ordinary interest. 

 It would be needless here to repeat the picture I have 

 drawn in the introduction to this work of the condition 

 of Norfolk some fifty or sixty years ago, as compared 

 with its present state as a great agricultural county ; 

 but the changes which have gradually though exten- 

 sively prevailed throughout that period, will sufficiently 

 account for the very considerable diminution in the 

 number of snipe that are now met with in autumn, 

 both resident and migratory. It must be remembered, 

 however, that whilst, within our own boundaries, the 

 western fens retain scarcely any of their original features, 

 and the fowler's occupation is gone in the now culti- 

 vated " Marshland; " that whilst in the "Broad" district 

 the snipe-grounds have been everywhere curtailed by 

 extensive drainage the drier marshes of former days 

 being now arable land, and the more swampy portions 

 rendered " too good " for snipe ; that whilst throughout 

 the county the enclosure and* cultivation of heaths, 

 commons, and other waste lands, have deprived the 

 snipe, the lapwing, and the redshank of many thousand 

 acres of their former haunts, the same indications of 

 an advanced civilization are apparent elsewhere.* Such 



* Mr. Alfred Newton tells me that at Barnham, near Thetford, 

 and bordering on this county, on the property of the Duke of 

 Grafton, there was some five and twenty years ago, a small but 

 singularly productive breeding-ground of this species. It con- 

 sisted of a piece .of low land, only a few acres in extent, lying on the 

 west side of that parish midway between the Elveden boundary 

 and a slight rising ground called Hunhill. The water from a 

 perennial spring formed a little stream which wound round and 

 about for a long way before it made its escape, and after much 

 rain overflowed the whole spot, whereon peat had formed, and 

 in consequence there grew thickly such vegetation as commonly 

 nourishes in similar places, while all around the soil was dry and 

 sandy, thinly clothed with short grass studded with scrubby heather 

 and furze bushes, hardly frequented by any birds. But this little 



