406 WILDFOWL SHOOTING 



particular spot for their evening-flights : consequently, 

 save having a tolerable quantity of bitterns, occasionally 

 most excellent snipe shooting, and in summer the 

 flapper shooting, here is not much to be done till about 

 the last fortnight in March, when the birds are dis- 

 tributed preparative to their breeding. Then it is that 

 old ducks and teal may be put up and killed right and 

 left with a double gun ; and then it is that we have 

 the greatest chance of catching the ague ! 



The fens from Holme to Ramsay were, at one time, 

 the best I had seen : they lay to the right of the north 

 road, when you are going down, within a stage of 

 Huntingdon, and scarcely an hour's walk from Stilton. 

 But afterwards, in 1816, 1 found those near Winterton, 

 in Norfolk (the private property of I. B. Huntingdon*, 

 and R. Rising, Esqrs.), far superior ; and the variety of 

 wild birds here was such, that, in the breeding season, 

 you might kill from twenty to thirty different sorts in 

 a day. Some, by-the-by, I had never seen before, and, 

 if I mistake not, I was favoured with a sight of two or 

 three, that were not even in Bewick, by an excellent 

 sportsman, C. Girdlestone, Esq., which he has in his 

 private collection, at Yarmouth. In many parts you 

 could scarcely walk without treading on the eggs of 

 terns, plovers, redshanks, and almost every other kind 

 of marsh-bird. At certain times, in the winter, the 

 fowl, on their passage from Holland to the south, dropped 

 in here, and literally blackened the centre part of the 

 lakes called Horsey-broad, and Heigham Sounds, where 

 they fancied themselves protected by the surrounding 

 ice. I was here shown by Rogers his plan of getting 



* Now, I believe, of Joseph Hume, Esq. M. P. 



