232 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
shelter of reeds or rushes, migrate here to breed; for this 
fen is very bare, having been imperfectly drained by narrow 
canals. . . . . It is observable, that once in seven or 
eight years, immense shoals of Sticklebacks appear in the 
Welland below Spalding, and attempt coming up the river in 
form of a vast column. They are supposed to be the collected 
multitudes washed out of the fens by the floods of several 
years. . . . . Stares [Starlings] which during winter 
resort in myriads to roost in the reeds, are very destructive, 
by breaking them down, by the vast numbers that perch on 
them. The people are therefore very diligent in their attempts 
to drive them away, and are at great expense in powder to 
free themselves of these troublesome guests. I have seen a 
stock of reeds harvested and stacked worth two or three 
hundred pounds, which was the property of a single farmer.” 
With regard to these Starlings it is easy to believe that the 
reed owners found them an intolerable nuisance. According 
to Daniel a reed-bed has been known to be damaged to the 
tune of a hundred pounds in one night,* this apparently in 
Lincolnshire. It was not only that the Starlings bent the 
stems, and even snapped some of them, in either case prevent- 
ing their attaining full development, but by their abundant 
excrement the reeds became soiled, and consequently less 
saleable. As we have seen the value of a crop, when thatching 
was universal, and tiles not much used might be very great, 
and the damage a matter of no small consequence. 
William Richards, who in his “‘ History of [King’s] Lynn,” 
has a good deal to say about the fens, with which he was 
doubtless personally acquainted, refers particularly to the 
Starlings,f and the havoc sometimes made in their ranks 
by the long guns of the fen fowlers,{ who greatly resented 
their depredations. 
Pennant continues: “The birds which inhabit the 
different fens are very numerous; I never met with a finer 
* “ Rural Sports,” by the Rev. W. B. Daniel, vol. III., p. 199. 
¢ Sec. X. and pp. 78, 195, 199 (published 1812). 
+ These men loaded with ample supply of shot, and he relates how a 
certain Thomas Hall knocked over 432 Starlings at a single discharge. But 
this tale of slaughter was beaten by Colonel Hawker (‘‘ Instructions to Young 
Sportsmen,” p. 271), and also by a heavy shot at Whittlesea Mere, which 
accounted for 504 (‘‘ Orn. Miscellany,’ III., p. 219). 
