442 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



It " forms roughly a triangle, of which the ridge of high land 

 running north for six miles from Reedham to Acle Bridge con- 

 stitutes the base, and the two sides are represented by the courses 

 of the rivers Bure and Yare, each for a distance of about seven 

 miles in a straight line, converging at Yarmouth, and enclosing 

 a tract of country shown on Faden's fine map, surveyed in the 

 years 1790-94, with but a single marsh-road winding along near 

 its centre, from Halvergate to a point about half-way between 

 Reedham and Yarmouth, where it joins a similar track which 

 follows the river bank from the former place ; their joint course 

 is then continued along the north banks of Breydon to the town 

 of Yarmouth. 



11 Marshall, in his ' Rural Economy of Norfolk,'* speaking of 

 this great level, significantly remarks that it is * tolerable in 

 summer,' and then relates his experience of a visit which he paid 

 on the 17th June, 1782. Entering the marshes at Halvergate, 

 he says that for nearly the first mile they rode to their horses' 

 knees in water! They then inspected a marsh-mill, of which 

 Faden's map shows only thirteen in the whole level (these doubt- 

 less altogether not equal in efficiency to one of the powerful 

 steam mills which have supplanted them), and, making a sweep 

 towards the middle of the marsh, they returned to Wickhampton, 

 where, he states, the entrance to the marsh was always free from 

 water. This great expanse of marsh was perhaps the finest 

 Snipe ground in England ; as many as seventy or eighty couple 

 are there said to have fallen to one gun in a single day ; and it 

 formed the breeding-place of thousands of Ruffs, and who can 

 tell what other birds, for there is little known. of it and its 

 inhabitants in those days, when only the shepherds and sports- 

 men ever trod its splashy soil. Although perfectly treeless, this 

 great plain was not one dead level ; there were sufficient irregu- 

 larities to render certain portions drier than others, and these 

 ' hills/ as they were called by the marshmen, formed the nesting- 

 places of the Ruffs, Redshanks, Snipes, and other marsh-loving 

 species, which frequented them in summer in large numbers ; 

 whilst on the wooded highlands to the north, along which the 

 old Yarmouth road runs, Herons had their homes ; and at Acle 



* Edit. 2, vol. iii. p. 276. 



