CHAPTER IV 



SHOOTING AT OULTON BROAD 



XCELLENT sport was to be 

 obtained in the precincts of 

 Oulton Broad with dog, boat 

 and gun. In days gone by 

 there were several inhabitants 

 in the quaint little waterway 

 village who gained their sole 

 means of livelihood from fish 

 and fowl. That was before 

 the railway came and before 

 steam drainage mills were 

 heard of, and a Cockney 

 would have been considered 

 daft had he then thought fit 

 to appear in the regions of Broadland in the costume and 

 general rig-out which is now no longer strange to the quiet 

 dwellers in this out-of-the-way corner of old England. 



Drainage was the first great blow to sport, steam and 

 railways the next, then the breechloader, and finally the 

 invading host of would-be sportsmen all eager to kill some- 

 thing. Year by year the water-birds have diminished in 

 number, and by degrees they desert the more frequented 

 rivers, streams and broads, until on many of the more public 

 waterways there is hardly an edible wild water-bird per 

 hundred acres. Oulton has suffered most in this respect. 



35 



A COCKNEY WILDFOWLER. 



("Any duck abart?") 



