62 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



CHAPTER XI. 

 BY BRACKISH POOL AND ODOROUS STREAM. 



THERE are few portions of our low-lying coasts which have not behind 

 them a fringe of semi-drained marsh land, used chiefly for pasturing cattle, 

 and subject in wild weather to occasional inroads of the sea. It follows that 

 there will be left behind a sprinkling of brackish pools, sometimes even so 

 numerous as to form a regular marsh, as in the case of Thorpe Mere at 

 Aldeburgh. While in other places may be seen small streams of fresh but 

 odorous water trickling with tortuous course towards the sea. 



These marshes are nowadays, for the most part, preserved, and, though 

 they harbour little game, the disputes and bad feeling which have almost 

 always accompanied their enclosure generally make it a difficult matter for 

 any stranger to get leave to shoot there. The method of enclosing them is 

 at all events a simple one. Some local magnate having duly expatiated on 

 the advantages sure to result to the community from land-reclaiming, pro- 

 ceeds first to the erection of a sea-wall. The wall erected, he erects also 

 notice-boards to warn off trespassers, and if any old gunners, accustomed 

 from boyhood to shoot over the marshes, object and seem likely to cause 

 trouble, they are given leave to shoot over them. New-comers are ejected, 

 though at times a stranger is turned off and afterwards given leave, in order 

 to establish the principle of leave-getting. Soon the rising generation begins 

 to look on the land as private, and thus all free shooting becomes a thing 

 of the past. 



One cannot help suggesting that any shore shooter, able to stand the 

 expense of a prosecution for trespass, might do much service to local gunners, 

 and himself get good sport in a double sense out of a persistent disregard 

 of these notice-boards. In many cases, if the accosted shooter presented 

 his card with a statement that he believed the shooting to be public, and 

 intended to shoot there until actually prosecuted, it is doubtful whether any 

 further steps would be taken, and still more doubtful whether anything 

 would come of them if they were. 



However, to return to the winged denizens of these unsavoury wastes. 



