373 ON BIED-NETS. 



Every part of the sketches is exact and real, except one— the birds on 

 the wing. Mr. Keulemans^ at my request, put those in, as the long space 

 up above looked bad without something. The value of these things depends 

 upon their truth. The figures are portraits, and the details faithful. 



The old man, Henry Hornigold, has been in Mr. Cresswell's service 

 more than twenty years, and is one of a family in that part of Norfolk the 

 members of which chiefly get their living by shooting or fishing. He says, 

 in fine weather the sea-fowl fly high, and that dark squally nights are most 

 favourable for catching, as they then travel low. This accords with my own 

 experience on this coast. It is a mistake to suppose that even little birds 

 always migrate high up ; they frequently come close over the waves. In 

 fact, they have a much stronger atmospheric sensibility than we imagine. 



My belief is that, if a man lived in the forest a wild life, this faculty in 

 him would be sharpened. And even now, how often do we hear people say, 

 ^^I know there will be thunder; it always gives me a headache;" and 

 thunder it does. 



But however that may be, if the reader is sitting (as is the writer) 

 alone, on a wintry night in January, with the rain descending in torrents, 

 the wind howling outside, on the sea-shore of the south of England, within 

 a mile of the melancholy remains of a fatal wreck, he is then in a fit 

 condition to enter into these drawings of ^' Netting Sea-fowl on the shores of 

 the Washr 



He may in imagination hear the whistle of the approaching Widgeon^ the 

 likeness to a storm in the rapidly flying Ox-birds, the shrill-sounding 

 pinions of the wild Ducks ; and, lastly, in the language of Hawker, " the 

 mournful notes of the Plover, with the roar of the bursting surge and the 

 discordant screams of sea-fowl,'' may strike upon his fancy, as at this 

 moment they in reality do upon my ear. 



