WINTER DAYS ON BREYDON 39 



the 28th and 29th. The ice formed so rapidly on the night 

 of the 2Qth that he had to return from the drain to his 

 houseboat, having no ice-hook to cut a way through ; but 

 on the 3<Dth he managed to hack his way out to open water. 



Mr. J. H. Gurney wrote me on December 26th, and 

 remarked on "flocks of skylarks going seawards." He saw 

 " twenty rooks that day eating a dead sheep." They devour 

 putrid dogs on Breydon, and seem to think nothing of it 

 indeed, they rather like it ! The rooks around Yarmouth 

 kept much to the various outlying gardens, and when not 

 progging for a morsel, sat disconsolately on the topmost twigs 

 of small trees, surveying the miserable outlook, and thinking 

 of happier days. They hunted singly every bird for himself! 

 Chaffinches fared badly, and looked the most abject of all 

 the finches. On the 27th, as I stood near a rail on Breydon 

 walls, one came to within ten inches of my foot to search 

 a tiny patch of bare soil. The meadow -pipits seemed 

 fairly happy, and hunted most of the time on the weedy 

 edges of Breydon, and along by the river margins. Scamps 

 of boys were to be seen catching, here and there, a miserable 

 bird with a piece of herring lint worked by a string and 

 two sticks. 



Many wildfowl were observed on the rivers, where open ; 

 and at St. Olaves some big bags were made. One gunner 

 shot a female goosander; and three equally harmless dab- 

 chicks were killed for no useful purpose. In the neighbour- 

 ing villages all the berries had been stripped from the 

 hedgerows. Two snipe wandered into a cattle-shed on the 

 marshes, where they probed and prodded among the stable 

 refuse in the hope of finding some stray grub or worm ; 

 their footprints in the snow led to their discovery, but on a 

 person carelessly slipping in, they promptly and safely 

 dashed out. 



Wild ducks were plentiful enough on Fritton Lake, and 

 big bags were made at the decoys ; as many as seven 

 hundred birds, I am given to understand, were netted there 

 in one day. Truly a neck- and arm-aching record ! To 

 certain brackish ditches round the west end of Caister, on the 

 edge of the marshlands, ducks persistently resorted, and 

 afforded one individual, who has, since the conclusion of the 

 herring voyage just before Christmas, done nothing but 



