528 
president’s address. 
change, cannot be regarded by the Naturalist without a pang of 
regret, for it has brought about the extinction of the noblest 
feathered inhabitant of which our county could boast, and we have 
only the poor consolation of knowing that it was not till 1838, 
several years after it had disappeared from its other haunts in this 
country, that the last of the local race of Great Bustards perished 
from the land. 
Even more marked in its outline and characteristics than the 
Breck District of which we have just been speaking, was that of 
the “ Eens,” which has, however, undergone far greater changes in 
modern times. Sharply defined on the whole, although its outline 
is much broken, the Fen-land commences near to Brandon, and its 
eastern boundary follows the high land in an irregular line to near 
the towns of Hockwold, Feltwell, Methwold, and Stoke Ferry, at 
which latter point it takes a sudden bend westward along the valley 
of the Wissey to Fordham, approaching nearly to the River Ouse, 
and after sending oft' a branch along the Nar Valley, is continued 
nearly up to the town of Lynn. To the west it merges in the 
great Cambridgeshire Fens, and includes the north-west corner of 
Norfolk, known as “Marshland;” the whole forming a portion of 
the Great Bedford Level. 
Marshland contains some 57,000 acres of exceedingly fertile land, 
covered with a network of raised banks which have been thrown 
up, some in very ancient times, to reclaim the soil from the sea, or 
to protect it from incursions of tire tides ; it has abundance of 
drains, but no natural springs or rivers, and Spelman states 
that it was in his time destitute of Moles and Shrews — a 
distinction, however, which it certainly does not enjoy in the 
present day. 
Of the true Fen there is very little left to enable any conception 
to be formed as to its appearance even, say, a century ago, much 
less in still earlier times, when the land was forest clad and inhabited 
by the Wolf, the Wild Boar and the Beaver, whilst giant Stags 
and herds of fierce Urus roamed its glades, and Cranes, and 
Pelicans, made their homes in its fastnesses. The trees have been 
swallowed up by the growing peat, which has also preserved the 
