152 BROADLAND SPORT 



and an enormous head of game kept up, a fact soon brought 

 home to the visitor by the quantity of birds of all descrip- 

 tions met with everywhere. 



Returning once more to the river, its winding course leads 

 to Horning Ferry. This part of the river runs through a 

 district of bogs and swamps, which have been reclaimed from 

 the main stream by drainage at a great expense to the 

 owners. The swamps extend over thousands of acres, and in 

 many places snipe and other wildfowl are found in abundance. 

 Well do we remember, when in company with two other 

 friends, we had a day's rough shooting on these very swamps. 

 Starting from the Old Maltings at Ranworth Quay, we em- 

 barked in a flat-bottom lighter which was pulled by a couple 

 of marshmen through the many clumps of reeds and sedge to 

 the entrance to a broad dyke. On the way over the water we 

 had several shots at snipe, coot, moor-hen and other birds 

 Then we were landed on a bog whilst the marshmen took the 

 boat round a labyrinth of dykes to meet us at another point. 

 We floundered along as noiselessly and as best we could over 

 the flooded bogs, the litter from which had been cut and 

 gathered, picking up on our way snipe and other water birds, 

 but missing many more than we shot at. 



Occasionally we would conceal ourselves in a clump of 

 reeds or in a friendly bush as a large bunch of peewits or a 

 few fowl took their line of flight in our direction, but more 

 often than otherwise were these tactics unsuccessful. Joining 

 our friends in the boat we were next deposited on some finer 

 marshes used for grazing, where we were able to add seven 

 and a half brace of pheasants and a leash of partridges to the 

 bag. Taking to the swamps again at a different point, we 

 beat some 500 acres, flushing a large number of snipe, 

 but not securing more than five and a half couple. We 

 should have killed more had not some of the party taken 

 occasional headers into places where they should have set 

 their feet. This necessitated a large consumption of whisky 

 which, it is perhaps needless to add, did not tend to promote 

 straight shooting ; but the sport these swamps afforded 



