3 66 



THE BIRDS OF LINCOLNSHIRE IN l6l2. 



Which here in winter time, when all is overflow'd, 



And want of solid sward enforceth them abroad, 



Th' abundance then is seen, that my full fens do yield, 



That almost through the isle, do pester every field. 



The Barnacles 26 with them, which wheresoe'er they breed, 



On trees, or rotten ships, yet to my fens for feed 



Continually they come, and chief abode do make, 



And very hardly forc'd my plenty to forsake : 



Who almost all this kind do challenge as mine own, 



Whose like, I dare aver, is elsewhere hardly known. 



For sure, unless in me, no one yet ever saw 



The multitudes of fowl, in mooting time they draw : 



From which to many a one, much profit doth accrue. 



" Now such as flying feed, next these I must pursue ; 

 The Sea-Meaw 27 , Sea-Pye 28 , Gull 29 , and Curlew 30 , here do keep, 

 As searching every shoal and watching every deep, 

 To find their floating fry, with their sharp-piercing sight, 

 Which suddenly they take, by stooping from their height. 

 The Cormorant 31 then comes, (by his devouring kind) 

 Which flying o'er the fen, immediately doth find 

 The Fleet. best stor'd of fish, when from his wings at full, 

 As though he shot himself into the thicken'd skull 32 , 

 He under water goes, and so the shoal pursues, 

 Which into creeks do fly, when quickly he doth choose 

 The fin that likes him best, and rising, flying feeds. 

 The Ospray 33 oft here seen, though seldom here it breeds, 

 Which over them the fish no sooner do espy, 

 But (betwixt him and them, by an antipathy) 

 Turning their bellies up, as though their death they saw, 

 They at his pleasure lie, to stuff his glutt'nous maw." 



26 In reference to the old fable. — W.Y. 



27 Sea-Mew, Sea-Mell, and Sea-Mall, old names for a small common Gull 

 Thus Caliban, among his other offers of service to Stephano, says : ' and some- 

 times I'll get thee young sea-mells from the rocks.' — Shakspeare 's 'Tempest? Act 2, 

 Scene 2.— W.Y. 



28 Sea-Pye, a name for the Oyster-catcher, Hccmatopus ostralegus, in reference 

 to its black and white colours. — W.Y. 



29 Already noticed. 



so Numenius arquata L. Both words refer to the bent form of the beak ; 

 Numenius meaning 'new moon.' — W.Y. 



31 Cormorants, Phalacrocorax carbo (L.), nested in trees on the shores of Fritton 

 Lake, Norfolk, as late as 1825.— J.C. 



32 Scull, or scool, a shoal; so, in Cornwall, a school of pilchards, &c. — W.Y. 



33 Pandion halia'etus L. Naturalist, 



