262 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



present time, 1892. They have remained just the 

 same as I left them forty years ago ooze-quags, 

 where a man is smothered in less than a minute, 

 if he gets into one and no help is near; quick- 

 sands, and rotten swamps abound. Ague and fever 

 are there too, as of old, also clouds of dunlins and 

 other fowl, for those who know these spots. 



Bitterns or French herns herons were fre- 

 quently met with. This was nothing to be sur- 

 prised at, when the fact of their nesting one time 

 in a vast swamp on the opposite shore is taken 

 into consideration. The inhabitants of those 

 drowned districts were, from the peculiar run of 

 the land and water, completely isolated. Hun- 

 dreds of rare birds, at least they would have been 

 thought such elsewhere, shared the fate of com- 

 moner ones. They were eaten, or, if they were 

 not fit to eat, thrown away after being shown to 

 the general community as curiosities in fowl. The 

 bittern is the bird of desolation. It is in desolate 

 places you will find him, if he is about at all. All 

 his habits are secretive ones. As a rule, he comes 

 out with the marsh -owls. His plumage mimics 

 the swamp-tangle perfectly, and the bittern draws 



