MY LAST DAY IN THE FEN. 



" At evening, o'er the sullen fen, 

 The bittern's boom came far." 



THE dull haze of a November evening was fast closing in over the 

 landscape as I drove down the North Bank from Peterborough, now 

 many years since, on my last visit to the Crowland fen. The 

 starlings had settled down to roost on the large reed beds with 

 which the wide expanse of flat, uncultivated country around was 

 studded j and, save the monotonous call of the restless peewits 

 dashing round and round over their night's camping-place, and the 

 occasional quacking of a pair of ducks as they rose from their 

 splashy feeding-grounds, a total silence reigned over all. The 

 heavy mist was rising fast, obscuring the few landmarks visible by 

 daylight in this dreary waste ; and it was with no little satisfaction 

 that I hailed a glimmering light shining murkily through the 

 window of the solitary public-house half-way down the Bank, 

 which was to be my head-quarters for the night, preparatory to the 

 last day's snipe shooting I should probably ever enjoy in a spot 

 endeared to me by so many fond recollections. 



At that day the fen was the fen. The many thousand acres, ay, 

 miles, of low, marshy ground extending along the east coasts of 

 Norfolk, Cambridge, and Lincolnshire, afforded then excellent sport 

 to the wildfowl-shooter, a wide field for the naturalist, and a home 

 to a half-amphibious class of men, as an old writer quaintly 

 observes, " of a rugged and uncivilized temper, envying others 

 whom they call upland men, and usually walking about on a sort of 

 stilts, and who keep to the business of grazing (qy. geese), fishing 

 and fowling." 



It was to one of these " ancient fossils " that my visit was 



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