370 ON BIRD-NETS. 



Midnight exposure by land or sea brings hardship with it ; and it 

 requires other than a drawing-room man '^to be anchored half a night 

 among the chilling winds in a creek/' 



Having heard from Mr. Cresswell that " next darks " the nets would be 

 set, I waited the result. A great deal depends uppn the weather, and the 

 position taken. The aim is always at high- water mark ; but as the tides are 

 very uncertain, and are often either pinched or swollen by a change of wind 

 or other causes, it is difficult to determine the proper place, which is below 

 rather than above ; thus birds sometimes drown with the rising tide. 



Of late years much land has been reclaimed from the sea, which 

 diminishes the supply of wildfowl and prevents any great success. About 

 three hundred were taken in 1876 — among them two Owls, quite uninjured, 

 which w^ere allowed to go free. Once, a fine flatfish was caught, and a 

 wooden doll, the nets having been partly under water, owing to an 

 unexpected high tide. 



On the 16th of December, 1876, Mr. Henry Baines, the artist, started 

 about 8 o'clock a.m., and worked all day. The morning was hazy, without 

 distinct forms of clouds, with a slight breeze from the southward. The nets 

 were pitched on the flats or sands below Terrington Marsh, about six miles 

 N.W. or N.W. by N. from King's Lynn (that Mother of the Fens), in 

 Norfolk, but close to the Lincolnshire border. 



In stormy nights sometimes as many fowl as the men could carry were 

 found in one length of net (thirty yards). 



The artist, I am told, had about six miles of very bad road to traverse, 

 along a sea-bank, before he could reach the spot, and suftered a good deal 



