BREYDON IN SPRINGTIME 79 



swallow stem and frond. They will eagerly eat, too, the dry, 

 chaffy remnants of Salicornia herbacea the jointed glass- 

 wort In dissecting a duck last January (1907) I found the 

 crop full of pieces of it, reminding one forcibly of the 

 " sticks " that sometimes float on the surface of one's tea. 



The flocks that collect here in springtime are often very 

 numerous, varying in numbers almost daily, as contingents 

 come and go, or alternate their nightly feeds with a siesta by 

 day at sea, when quiet is assured. On Breydon the wigeon 

 delights to feed and make love, and petty quarrels sometimes 

 take place among the drakes. They seem curiously human 

 in some of the phases of their life ! 



The drakes appear to me to be always in excess of the 

 ducks. Sometimes a flock of two thousand birds may be 

 seen fussing about at one time ; such an assembly makes the 

 quiet night weird by the sme-ou (with the ou prolonged a 

 trifle at times, Kk6 the plaint of a dove) of the gallant drakes, 

 and the queer little snappy responses of their females ; then 

 the bibbling of their bills and the scrunching of the " grass " 

 are distinctly heard across the water. In 1905 I saw three 

 male wigeon on Breydon as late as May I3th. 



These birds afforded the old gunners much sport in the 

 days before close seasons stayed their hand. Even in the 

 early days of protection, there were still big bags made now 

 and then, and the slaughtered birds were smuggled home by 

 ways so devious and cunning, that the perpetrators would 

 have puzzled a preventive man as their early forbears did 

 the customs officers, when they hid their contraband in the 

 then thickly reeded, but now barren lows and obliterated 

 pulk-holes, in a corner near which the Moorhen lies in peace- 

 ful seclusion. But this no longer obtains, for our friend inside, 

 now calling me to breakfast, is attentive to his duties. So 

 the wigeon have a right royal time of it ; and amongst 

 them, in complete security and in perfect amity, scarcer and 

 even rarer fowl are to be found feeding and fraternising, such 

 as pintail ducks, shovelers, teal, and others, not to mention 

 the mallard and his sober-hued spouse. 



Some years ago, when there was no law against it, and 

 consequently no real sinning (?), " Fiddler " Goodens was 

 paddling around after the wigeon, when he saw a couple of 

 weary avocets thigh-deep in the water, and probably floating. 



