120 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



Some years ago a crank " followed " Breydon, at intervals, 

 with a big gun that had an unpleasant knack of kicking. 

 He was known as " The Tailor." One foggy morning he 

 gave his fellow punters a great fright as he " loomed up " out 

 of the dense mist, and drew up to the quayside. His face 

 was as red as though it had been dipped in blood ; but he did 

 not seem to know it. On inquiry he admitted that when 

 pulling at a bunch of fowl the gun had kicked him badly on 

 his nose, which started bleeding, and behaved in a most 

 refractory manner as he hastily rowed for home. He had 

 endeavoured to stanch the bleeding with his big wool 

 mittens, and in so doing had besmeared his face all over, and 

 the trickling blood, freezing on his moustache and beard, 

 gave him a most gruesome appearance, as may be 

 imagined. 



In January, 1907, a gentleman gunner was shooting on 

 Breydon with one of the natives, and seeing a pochard too 

 far on the flat to be reached with a charge of shot he essayed 

 to walk to it. Now, to any one not used to the muddy flats, a 

 slip sooner or later becomes a certainty ; and in his haste the 

 sportsman managed to slip, falling full length, face down- 

 wards, in a particularly nasty patch of ooze. He looked a 

 pathetic figure, besmeared from top to toe with the vilest of 

 mud, and with one boot that had come off, in his hand, as he 

 made for the punt. It was a cruelly cold day. To add to 

 his chagrin the pochard took to wing and flew towards a 



" corner," alighting near where Y was in hiding with his 



punt-gun. Within a couple of minutes the pochard was in 

 his punt. I saw the bird hanging next day on Y 's haber- 

 dashery stall in the market, sharing one corner of it with a 

 number of fine male wigeon and some woollen stockings 

 all alike on sale. 



FLOUNDER CATCHING 



By the end of the /o's Breydon flats had so " grown up " 

 that considerable changes had taken place in the habits of 

 the local fauna, and correspondingly in the occupations of 

 the local Breydoners. Grey mullet, which to this day haunt 

 the deeper channels in some numbers, prior to the /o's used 

 to swarm over the flats, undoubtedly drawn there by a love 



