THE BIRDS OF GREAT YARMOUTH. 157 



vast stretches of marshes ditched and drained, the extensive level 

 of swamp must have been at most hours of the tide a very para- 

 dise for the wildfowl, and those who sought them. " It would 

 be difficult to imagine," wrote the Messrs. Paget in 1834, " a 

 spot more suitable to their (the wildfowls') habits than Breydon 

 affords, consisting as it does of a sheet of water some miles in 

 extent, with shallow borders, or flats (as they are called), and 

 surrounded, almost as far as the eye can reach, by marshes. 

 The water leaving its banks quite bare for a considerable extent 

 at every ebbing of the tide, exposes an abundance of the small 

 crustaceous animals and other food most congenial to the Duck 

 tribe. Even in the severest winters it is seldom so completely 

 frozen over as not still to afford, in the small fish with which it 

 abounds, and the crabs and insects about its banks, a sufficiency 

 of provision for the fowl ; and it is in such seasons that the 

 greatest numbers are secured. Almost benumbed with cold, they 

 flock together, and while they sit crowded up in a compact mass, 

 to prevent the warmth of their bodies escaping, the gunner 

 may, in his flat-bottomed boat, approach within a comparatively 

 short distance of them by means of channels made in the flats, 

 and with a single discharge of his gun, which moves on a 

 swivel in the midships of his boat, effect a most extraordinary 

 slaughter." 



To-day these attractions remain much the same, but the birds 

 are fewer. In severe spells of frost astonishing numbers of wild- 

 fowl are occasionally seen there, when a constant fusillade is 

 heard, the frequent sharp crack of shoulder-guns being punc- 

 tuated by the louder boom of the punt-guns. During a snap of 

 frost in December, 1899, hundreds of Wigeon, Tufted Ducks, 

 Mallard, and other fowl, besides thousands of Dunlins, swarmed 

 on Breydon ; and Durrant's game-stall presented a remarkable 

 appearance, covered as it was with hundreds of wild birds of 

 various species. 



Reverting again to the Pagets' ■ Sketch,' an instance is related 

 of a punt-gunner, named Thomas, " who one morning, on awaking 

 in his boat on the flats, saw not far from him a number of wild- 

 fowl sitting in a crowd close together on the ice. From the boat 

 being nearly covered with snow he had escaped their observation 

 while they were collecting in the night. He immediately fired 



