76 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



fiercely conservative as a class, and would have 

 fought for the prescriptive rights of their own fore- 

 shores. " Cobblers, Awl-ducks, Scoopers, Yelpers, and 

 Black-and-white Flighters were the names given to 

 the Avocets. 



The famous Romney Marsh was another favourite 

 locality for them. What a lot of bird-lore have we 

 treasured up from there ! for the great flat was 

 credited, and not without reason, as being the great 

 sanctuary for all kinds of " strange furrin fowl." I 

 remember when one of our fowlers brought a little 

 Bittern and a Godwit from Essex, and they were 

 unanimously reckoned up as " Romney Marsh 

 flighters." If strange fowl were shot elsewhere, 

 they were called " Frenchers," a very simple way of 

 settling matters, but certainly not one that threw 

 much light on the study of ornithology. However, 

 it passed muster at that time. 



All kinds of fowl, full-webbed, half-webbed, and 

 hen-footed, have risen screaming, quacking, and 

 whistling, disturbed by the tramp of great cart- 

 horses, teams of them, borrowed without leave for 

 running a cargo of contraband over the marshes. 

 Most accurate in their descriptions of the fowl were 

 those old shore-shooters. Names were nothing, Latin 

 ones especially, as we knew the local names ; the 

 men only had to reel off their experiences, and I for 

 one listened most attentively. What they had not 

 seen one day, very likely they would the next ; in 

 fact all my time, when no one else had a claim on it, 

 was passed with the shooters and the local bird- 



