BIRDS AND THE GREAT SNOW. 87 



Halls said the 23rd was a " wildfowl day beyond all memory." 

 Some small return bunches visited Breydon on the 28th and 

 29th. The ice formed so rapidly on the night of the 29th that 

 he had to return from the drain to his houseboat, having no ice- 

 hook to cut a way through, but on the 30th he managed to hack 

 his way out to open water. 



Mr. J. H. Gurney wrote me on Dec. 26th, and remarked on 

 "flocks of Sky-Larks going seawards." He saw twenty Books 

 that day eating a dead sheep. They devour putrid dogs on 

 Breydon, and seem to think nothing of it — indeed, they rather 

 like it ! The Books around Yarmouth kept much to the various 

 outlying gardens, and, when not progging for a morsel, sat dis- 

 consolately on the topmost twigs of small trees, surveying the 

 miserable outlook, and thinking of happier days. They hunted 

 singly — every bird for himself. Chaffinches fared badly, and 

 looked the most abject of all the Finches ; on the 27th, as I 

 stood near a rail on Breydon walls, one came to within ten inches 

 of my foot to search a tiny patch of bare soil. The Meadow- 

 Pipits seemed fairly happy, and hunted most of the time on the 

 weedy edges of Breydon, and along by the river margins. Scamps 

 of boys were to be seen catching here and there a miserable bird 

 with a piece of herring-lint. 



Many wildfowl were observed on the rivers, and at St. Olaves 

 some good bags were made. One gunner shot a Goosander, and 

 three equally harmless Dabchicks were killed — for no useful 

 purpose. In the neighbouring villages all the berries had been 

 stripped from the hedgerows. Two Snipe wandered into a 

 cattle-shed on the marshes, where among the stable-refuse they 

 probed and prodded, in hopes of finding some stray grub or 

 worm ; their footprints in the snow led to their discovery, and, 

 on a person cautiously slipping in, they promptly and safely 

 dashed out. 



Wild Ducks were plentiful enough at Fritton Lake, and big- 

 bags were made at the decoys ; as many as seven hundred birds, 

 I am told, were netted therein in one day. Truly a neck- and an 

 arm-aching record ! To certain brackish ditches round the west 

 end of Caister, on the edge of the marsh-lands, Ducks persist- 

 ently resorted, which resulted in one individual, who has, since 

 the conclusion of the Herring voyage, just before Christmas, done 



