WINTER DAYS ON BREYDON 37 



I remarked to a couple of different stall-keepers, touching the 

 dead blackbirds with my finger. 



" Yow'd think 'em friends, 'bor," said one, " if yow was jist 

 to see 'em among our fruit ! " 



" Yow'd think so, 'bor, v said the other, " if yow saw 'em in 

 summer!" 



But neither could tell me where they got their fruit from 

 in winter ; but so vindictiveness had slain them, and petu- 

 lance was exhibited even in referring to them. And as 

 blackbirds are esteemed uncommonly good eating in Yar- 

 mouth, no mercy is ever shown them. 



On the 3Oth I called on Halls, an intelligent young 

 engineer, and a good observer of bird-life, whose works over- 

 shadow Breydon, and who in summer is ever ready, in motor 

 launch or punt, to show visitors over this magnificent estuary, 

 and who also follows Breydon with a big gun " when there's 

 anything about." He was just sitting down to dinner 

 after a week's wild life on Breydon, and sleeping at night 

 in his snug, roomy houseboat, returning to town only at 

 intervals with his game, for which he found, somehow, a 

 ready sale. 



"I closed down (the engineering shed) for the Christmas 

 week," said he, "and have had a week up Breydon, and 

 haven't done so bad" Let me summarise his experiences. 



He met with the first lot of fowl on the 23rd, getting 

 several mallard and seventeen coots. On the 24th he killed 

 twenty-five coots at one shot with the big gun, and obtained 

 altogether " two or three linen baskets" of these birds. There 

 must have been quite three thousand coots on Breydon frozen 

 out from the Broads ; they kept much in line, like soldiers in 

 a regiment (as I have seen them here before in hard winters), 

 and fed ravenously on the sweet, fattening stems of Zostera 

 marina. They made quite an audible scrunching noise in 

 tearing them up. A wretched adult crested grebe sat miser- 

 ably bunched up on the ice, literally starving ; he knocked it 

 over with an oar as he rowed along. 



About sixty swans visited Breydon. Sharman killed 

 three, Halls shot one, which he believed to be a Polish 

 swan ; and gave me a fairly representative description of it 

 It was quickly sold for eating. The majority of the swans 

 appeared to be whoopers. Geese had been scarce ; five 



