THE YORKSHIRE FEN 283 



a commission appointed to report on its possibility 

 had declared impossible. The nature of the ground at 

 that time may be judged from the fact that when 

 James I. visited the country five hundred deer were 

 collected from the drier parts of the fen, and made to 

 swim across the waters, where they were caught from 

 boats. The scene must have been much like that of 

 hunting the swamp deer of Borneo. The local name 

 for the upper levels of the reclamation is the " Carrs," 

 and each village usually has attached to it a part of 

 this reclamation which bears its name, such as Loversall 

 Carr, Wad worth Carr, Balby Carr, and others. The 

 portion with which the writer is best acquainted is that 

 which lies south-west of Doncaster, in the valley, or 

 what is now the valley, but was once the marsh, of the 

 rivers Thorne and Idle. This was an outlying branch 

 of the great fen, which originally extended on the 

 north to the river Humber, on the east to the lowlands 

 of the Trent, and on the south into Nottinghamshire, 

 and included the Isle of Axholme, Thorne Waste, 

 Marshland, and the Fen of Hatfield Chase. Before 

 the end of last century, according to a most interesting 

 article on this fen by Mr. Eagle Clarke, which appeared 

 in the Field of November 26, 1887, there were not 

 only vast numbers of duck breeding in the fen, but 

 in addition the bittern, rufF, and reeve, the black- 

 tailed godwit, the marsh harrier, the great crested grebe, 

 and the water-rail, all bred commonly on the " Potterick 

 Carr" above Doncaster. In 1762 John Smeaton, the 

 builder of the Eddystone Lighthouse, showed how the 



