266 ON SURREY HILLS. 



and the bogs were so treacherous that the farmer's 

 lads had to get long planks to put down when they 

 wanted to gather the water-cress that grew there in 

 lank luxuriance. Giant cress it was, yet " tender as 

 a babby," the boys said. A wealth of wild life once 

 existed there, but it has vanished, for the boggy 

 ground has been drained. 



I fear my readers will give me credit for romancing 

 when I tell them how this actually took place, to my 

 own knowledge. A man with money came and 

 rented the whole of the district alluded to. He 

 wanted to have more woodcocks and snipe, with a 

 few other creatures about ; so he drained their feed- 

 ing-places in all directions, close to the breeding- 

 grounds ; because, as he said, it was wet to get about 

 on ! The birds could not put up with such treat- 

 ment ; they forsook the place, to his great wonder- 

 ment, after all he had done for their benefit. After a 

 time he too left the district. He bungled certainly, 

 so far as the wild creatures were concerned, but in 

 another way he had been of use to his fellows, with- 

 out suspecting it ; for good grazing lands and corn 

 grounds now stand where formerly the bogs quaked. 

 Now and again I hear of a brace of cock being shot 



