36 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
had tried their hands at draining and not succeeded. What this 
wild tract, which comprised Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon, 
as well as a large part of Lincolnshire and West Norfolk, was 
like in the time of William the Conqueror, may be imagined by 
comparing it withthe deltas of the Rhone or the Nile, as they 
exist at the present day. The eastern boundary of the Fen 
district, so far as Norfolk was concerned, commenced, says 
Henry Stevenson, ‘‘ immediately below the town of Brandon, 
in the low ground, through which the Little Ouse winds its 
way, and rounding the uplands of Hockwold, turns northwards 
towards Methwold, then running up the course of the Wissey, 
nearly as far as Stoke Ferry, it bends to the westward in the 
direction of Denver, whence it pursues a comparatively straight 
course to King’s Lynn, being, however, slightly diverted to 
the eastward up the valley of the Nar.”* 
The centre part of this great Fen area was little better 
than an inland sea of brackish water in winter, and a swamp 
in summer, suitable encugh for aquatic birds, but noxious to 
human beings, who gave it up to the possession of the Bittern, 
the Godwit, and the Grey-lag Goose; and maybe the Egret, 
the Stilt, the Night Heron, and the Ibis were there too. No 
Cornelius Vermuyden had as yet arisen, and Henry VII. 
had not sanctioned the general drainage of that part of his 
dominions, which must have beena wild birds’ paradise, though 
there were no ornithologists then to enjoy it. Fortunately we 
possess the ‘“‘ Liber Eliensis” MS., which gives us some idea 
of the wilderness of reeds and their attendant water-fowl; when 
this brief chronicle, the labour of some unknown monk, was 
composed in the eleventh century, there could not have been 
less than two thousand square miles of marsh and fen. A 
good deal of it would have been literally teeming with wild- 
fowl, Ducks of many sorts and kinds in the open water, with 
Cranes, Bitterns, Spoonbills, and even Pelicans wherever the 
quaking bog afforded them standing room. ‘“‘ De avibus.. .” 
writes the author of the Liber, ‘‘ Anseres innumere, fiscedule, 
felice, merge, corve aquatice, ardez et anetes, quarum copia 
maxima est brumali tempore vel cum aves pennas mutant, 
per centum et tres centas captas vidi plus minusve: 
nonnunquam in laqueis et retibus ac glutine capi 
* “ The Birds of Norfolk,’”’ by Henry Stevenson (Vol. I., p. LIV.). 
