THE YARE VALLEY 221 



handles his gun smartly he will be enabled to slip in another 

 cartridge and put in a right and left before the birds have 

 gone out of range. 



An amusing instance of this once happened. A marsh- 

 man's boy went out to the evening flight with an old Martini- 

 Henry rifle converted into a muzzle-loading shot - gun, 

 and during the evening an enormous flock of plover flew over 

 him. The birds were quite 100 yards high, yet he fired, and 

 to his unbounded delight they all apparently fell to the ground. 

 In great excitement he danced upon the marsh, shouting, " I've 

 killed the lot ! I've killed the lot ! " But when they continued 

 their flight his face was a picture. 



During the earliest part of a severe frost hundreds of these 

 birds may be seen on the salt-marshes round the coast, before 

 they finally betake themselves to more southern climes. 



Grey plover migrate to Broadland and the East Coast 

 regularly every autumn, about the first week in October. 

 When first over they are very tame, and one can approach 

 within shooting distance without much difficulty ; but as 

 the season advances they mass themselves into flocks and 

 become exceedingly wild and shy. A shore shooter may 

 walk until he drops without getting a fair chance at them, 

 or even picking up a few stragglers, unless he is assisted by a 

 frost. 



But the bird which in Broadland affords so much sport is 

 the common plover or lapwing. In years gone by, when East 

 Anglia could not produce a sufficient quantity of wheat to 

 feed the population, when the uplands were almost all heath 

 and warren and the marshland was a swampy fen, these birds 

 must have lived here in countless thousands, but now, as year 

 by year less heath and warren are to be found and the marsh- 

 lands are drained more and more, so do these birds decrease 

 in number. 



In the early spring the common plover nest in all parts 

 of Broadland, on the marshes, in the fen, on open fields on 

 the uplands, and especially upon the warrens and the large 

 tracts of heath. They scrab a small hole in the ground and 



