l6o HEROES OF SCIENCE. 



to London to supply the markets ; among them all 

 the superannuated geese and ganders (here called 

 cagmags) which serve to fatigue the jaws of the 

 good citizens who are so unfortunate as to meet 

 with them." He proceeds, " It is observable that 

 once in seven or eight years, immense shoals of 

 sticklebacks appear in the Welland below Spalding, 

 and attempt coming up the river in a vast column. 

 They are supposed to be the collected multitudes 

 washed out of the fens by the floods of several 

 years, and carried into some deep hole. When, over- 

 charged with numbers, they are obliged to attempt 

 a change of place, they move up the river in such 

 quantities as to enable a man who was employed 

 in taking them, to earn, for a considerable time, four 

 shillings a day by selling them at a halfpenny per 

 bushel. They were used to manure land, and 

 attempts have been made to get oil from them." 

 '* The birds which inhabit the different fens are 

 very numerous ; I never met with a finer field for 

 the zoologist to range in. Besides the common wild 

 duck, wild geese, gorganies, pochards, shovellers, and 

 teals breed here. I have seen in the east fen a 

 small flock of the tufted ducks ; but they seemed 

 only to make it a baiting place. The pewits, gulls, 

 and black terns abound ; the last in vast flocks 

 almost deafen one with their clamour, and a few of 

 the great terns are seen amongst them. I saw 

 several of the great crested grebes on the east fen, 

 called there gaunts, and met with one of their 

 floating nests with eggs in it. The lesser crested 



