WINTER QUARTERS. 35 



rather increasing than diminishing, although an 

 unusually severe winter never fails to thin the 

 ranks of their occupants. The ponds, brooks and 

 ditches, which they have been in the habit of fre- 

 quenting, being now frozen up, the poor birds are 

 driven to the sea-coast and the salt-marshes at the 

 mouths of the rivers, beyond the Downs : there 

 the murderous fowling-piece stops the career of 

 many a straggler in his winter quarters, and the 

 ensuing spring finds several nests untenanted ; 

 but a favourable season soon sets all to rights ; 

 the gaps are filled up ; and the kind-hearted pro- 

 prietor of Parham, in return for his care and 

 protection, can now boast of possessing one of the 

 finest establishments in the kingdom of this mag- 

 nificent and interesting species. 



