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CHAPTER X. 



THE BUSHES. 



OF recent years perhaps no haunt of the collector has attracted to 

 itself so much attention as the strip of shingle which runs along the 

 Norfolk coast between Wells and Cromer. A large portion of this strip is 

 interspersed with a thick dwarf scrub (Sueda fruticosa), rarely rising beyond 

 three feet in height, especially at the beginning of August. The walking 

 is atrocious, and the collector who visits the locality for the first time is 

 almost sure to instinctively avoid what he will afterwards come to regard 

 as the most interesting portion of his beat. 



But the day, or rather evening, soon arrives when, seated beside the 

 operating table of the local taxidermist, he listens, for a time, indeed, with 

 the ear of the sceptic, to the tales of surpassing rarities shot or observed 

 upon this very beach. He hears how Messrs. Gurney and Power discovered 

 that these bushes, for years immune and unfrequented by the gunner, 

 are the regular resort of a vast army of migratory small birds, and that, 

 given only a favourable wind, there is no reason why the choicest of the 

 Warblers may not be brought home in triumph by the veriest novice that 

 ever handled a gun. Well do I remember listening with incredulity to the 

 story of the Yellow-browed Warbler at which some workman let fly his 

 muzzle-loader merely to get rid of the charge ; and of the Aquatic which 

 flew thrice round a collector, while his companion vainly exhorted him to 

 fire at what he believed to be a Sedge-Warbler, and not worth the 

 expenditure of a cartridge. The glories of Dr. Power's Barred and Icterine 

 Warblers were also expatiated on for our edification, and, fired at length 

 by the recital of these successes, and more especially by the appearance 

 in the flesh of an Icterine shot by Mr. Robert Gurney, we determined on 

 the next day to give the bushes a genuine trial. 



Now the bushes are a lottery and the prizes few ; but there is a 

 fascination about "doing" them, which appeals to young and old alike. 

 One can always guarantee two hours' solid exercise for the thighs, and 

 an impromptu bath into the bargain if it happens to have rained during 



