My Last Day in the Fen. 249 



fish ; i4lb. was about the largest I ever took, although I saw one 

 taken of above 35lb., and one eel, the largest I ever saw in my life, 

 weighing 61b. I recollect, when quite a boy, the mere being blown 

 dry. Yes, the water was actually blown out of the mere by, J 

 think, a strong easterly wind. But whichever quarter the wind 

 came from, the result was that the bottom of the mere lay nearly 

 dry, and it was then that " the mighty wonders of the deep" were 

 brought to light. Eels, bream, tench, and pike of an immense size, 

 were taken out of the holes by the neighbouring fishermen, who 

 launched their gunning-punts on rollers, and then slid them over 

 the muddy bottom. It must have been a curious scene. It was 

 graphically described to me in after years by old Cole, of Holme 

 (who in my day rented the fishing of the mere), and I recollect he 

 told me that he was almost frightened at times on seeing a 

 hole filled with large bream and eels struggling and splashing, the 

 eels ravenously fixing on the large bream as if they would devour 

 them. So immense was the quantity of fish which died in the mud, 

 that for days a pestilential vapour hung over the mere, and so great 

 was the destruction that the fishery of the mere had never to my 

 day recovered itself. But another great source of profit in this 

 region consisted of the extensive reed-banks that fringed the borders 

 of the mere. Hundreds and hundreds of acres were yearly cut and 

 carried away for the purposes of thatching j and I know no prettier 

 landscape than a view of the mere in its icy winter coat, the 

 fringe of reeds glistening in the white hoar frost. 



Every naturalist can well suppose how rich such a district must 

 have been, and to many a botanist, entomologist, and ornithologist, 

 this was in my day as sacred ground. The swallow-tail and other 

 rare butterflies were often common enough here, and the drawers of 

 my egg-cabinet can even to this day boast of many treasures taken 

 in the fen. The kite and common buzzard bred then in Holme 

 and Alconbury woods, close by $ the harriers on the fen itself ; and 

 the water rail, the spotted crake, and many other aquatic birds, 

 among the reeds and coarse herbage, which afforded them a 

 secluded, and except to the prying eye of the collector, a secure 



