CHAP. vn.J NESTING HABITS. 327 



The Bittern is still found occasionally, not too often, 

 in Norfolk. It breeds there, and seems to rear its 

 broods of young on a very odd principle. The Rev. 

 R. Lubbock, in his " Fauna of Norfolk," says that, in 

 two cases of four young in one nest, two were apparently 

 much older than the others : so great was the difference, 

 that one pair were more than half-grown and nearly 

 fledged, and the other pair covered with nestling down, 

 and but a few days hatched. So that they would ap- 

 pear to make a second laying before the produce of their 

 first eggs is reared, after the manner of Pigeons, only 

 the last eggs are deposited in the same nest. When 

 obtainable, the Bittern is usually procured from a small 

 but naturally marked district of the county, the coast 

 boundaries of which are terminated by Winterton and 

 Happisburgh respectively. It may also inhabit the 

 curious region lying along Weyborne, Cley, Stiffkey, 

 Wells, and Burnham the last well known as Nelson's 

 birthplace ; but the specimens that one hears of all 

 come from the first named tract of quasi land, a good 

 deal of which answers to Milton's description of a cer- 

 tain district of chaos, being 



" A boggy Syrtis, neither sea, 

 Nor good dry land." 



The whole beat, containing many extensive parishes, 

 lies low, in fact scarcely, if at all, above the level of 

 high spring tides. Fifty years ago, it was a tender, 

 barely treadable swamp, the old churches and few farm- 

 houses being built wherever there might happen to be 

 the most solid foundation for them. I am not geologist 

 enough to say whether it is in a state of gradual sub- 

 sidence or elevation ; at Palling there is to be seen at 



