216 BROADLAND SPORT 



reeds, but I niver heered as how they was nawthing out o' 

 the common. I'll hev a better look at 'em next time I cum 

 across 'em." And so he did. Within three weeks he had shot 

 the last one, and sold them all to a London naturalist at 

 7s. 6d. a pair. It was a small gold mine for Snookey ; he did 

 no more work until the summer took him yachting, where 

 unlimited beer and baccy, with good pay and very little 

 to do, were inducements which he could never resist. I 

 always curse that mud-hole and my too long tongue, which 

 let out the secret and caused a colony of these most inter- 

 esting and rare little ornaments of Broadland to be 

 decimated. 



But if Snookey preferred personal pecuniary advantages 

 to any general future ornithological benefits to Broadland, he 

 was always a willing companion on either mere or marsh, 

 especially when a full stone jar was on board and there 

 was the chance of a stray shilling at the end of the day. 

 Snookey was likewise an authority on the weather as well 

 as on the habits of fish and fowl. He was great at plover 

 egging, and our poor's marsh was no bad hunting-ground in 

 this respect. True, it could not compete with the Fens proper, 

 Thetford Heath or the Thurne Level of the twenties and the 

 thirties, when a linen basket could easily be filled with eggs, 

 but a dozen or so at a time was a fair average for our poor's 

 marsh, provided one only hit the time right and did not 

 follow in the footsteps of someone else who had risen earlier 

 and watched for the opportunity. 



Not only plover, but redshanks, snipe^ rails, moorhens, 

 wild ducks, coots, and a variety of smaller birds, all fre- 

 quent our marsh during the breeding season, and their 

 eggs can soon be found by anyone having the necessary 

 knowledge. 



As the season advances and August draws near the ex- 

 citement of an all-night sitting on the confines of the marsh 

 is eagerly looked forward to by our local wildfowlers, but 

 of late years the number of the shooters has exceeded the 

 number of the ducks. The year's crop of flappers from our 



