82 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



herons away yonder fishing low in the creeks, only show their 

 long, lank necks above the level of the flat, looking as odd as 

 do isolated stalks of buttonless sprouts when one hurries past 

 a garden. They seem to know the old Fiddle-case?- A 

 Breydon punt spells speed, scant elbow-room, squatness, and 

 easy management ; one can bowl along with the tiller and 

 sheet in one hand, and focus his beloved Zeiss's in the other. 

 One comes, too, to see and not to be seen ! I may as well say 

 here that the Fiddle-case was built to suit a naturalist, and 

 not for sporting ; consequently, although more roomy, it is 

 not built on the graceful lines of those beautiful models 

 used by artistic-minded sportsmen. My friend Mr. Albert 

 Beckett, together with the late Fielding Harmer, one of the 

 bygone race of gentlemen punt-gunners, have brought the 

 lines of this boat to perfection, and compared with it, punts 

 I have seen at Lynn and Aldeburgh are the merest " wash- 

 keelers." 



Now my visitor has settled himself, and the captain is at 

 the tiller, for the Fiddle-case differs from all other punts in 

 possessing a rudder, the rest being guided by a sculling-oar 

 thrust through a fixed rowlock placed far astern. Let us be 

 off. We are not many minutes in reaching the huge railway 

 bridge that spans the entrance of Breydon, and which causes 

 wherrymen and yachting folk to sin more with their tongues 

 than does any other obstacle in their tracks. Passing under it, 

 with plenty of room to spare, we are almost at once abreast 

 of the North Wall drain. Stake No. I adjoins it. The 

 drain makes a detour for nearly a mile, running parallel to 

 the walls, and for a long way with the railway metals beside 

 it. Sometimes the flats hereabouts are tenanted by a host of 

 small waders, which after a while pay little heed to the noisy 

 locomotives gliding along beside the wall. Wildfowl do not 

 stay long enough to get over their fright of them, and the 

 anathemas of the ancient race of punters who fished and 

 shot here in the 40*5 were long and deep. I heard the echoes 

 of them in the /o's and 8o's, when the old fellows, in a 

 reminiscent mood, warmed up and waxed eloquent. There 

 was fairly deep water, and fresh, at the neap tides, and there 

 were reed-beds down as far as the signal-box in the long 



1 The name given to my punt by some of the Breydoners when first launched 

 on Breydon. 



