56 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



with some, if not with all of them. I have watched 

 one feeding, sometimes, for a length of time, quite 

 by itself. Not only, on such occasions, have there 

 been no others with it, but often none were in sight, 

 nor did any join it, when it flew up. Nothing, in 

 fact, can look more solitary than these black specks 

 upon the wide, empty warrens, or the still more 

 desolate marshes fens, as they are called, though, 

 as I say, Icklingham is separated from the real fen- 

 lands by some seven miles. These fens are un- 

 drained, and unless the weather has been dry for 

 some time, it is difficult to get about in them. At 

 first sight, indeed, it looks as though one could do 

 so easily enough, for the long, coarse grass grows 

 in tufts, or cushions one might almost call them 

 each one of which is raised, to some height, upon a 

 sort of footstalk. But if one steps on these they 

 often turn over, causing one to plunge into the 

 water between them, which their heads make almost 

 invisible. These curious, matted tufts were used 

 here in old days for church hassocks called pesses 

 and several of them, veritable curiosities, are now in 

 the old thatched church at Icklingham, which has 

 been abandoned why I know not and is fast 

 going to ruin. 



Rooks sometimes visit these marshes for the sake 

 of thistles which grow there, or just on their borders, 

 the roots of which they eat, as do also, I believe, 

 some of the hooded crows, since I have seen them 

 excavating in the same places. I know of no more 

 comfortless sight than one or two of these crows 

 standing about on the sodden ground, whilst 

 another sits motionless, like an overseer, in some 



