president’s address. 
531 
overflowing tire marshes, hut yet the gain annually is not small 
(from the fertilizing nature of the waters), besides the great 
abundance of fish and other water creatures (as wild-fowl that are 
there attracted). This river is as it were the Milky-way to many 
inland places ; for by it they import and export largely, mer- 
chandise and the necessaries of life.” But this is as nothing to 
his praises of Lynn, with his remarks on which earthly paradise, 
I must depart out of the Fens. “ Lynn,” says Spelman, “ is so well 
provided hy nature with esculents and drinks, that it may seem to 
be the store-house both of Ceres and Bacchus; fur on its eastern 
side there is a great abundance of corn, eggs, Babbits, and land 
birds ; while on the western side there is a like abundance of 
cheese, butter, Oxen, Swans, and marsh birds ; and in the neigh- 
bourhood of fish, on the ono side sea-fisli, and on the other, river 
and fresh water fish ; so that scarcely in all Britain, perhaps in all 
Europe, is so great an abundance of eatables to be met with in the 
like space.” 
Great is the temptation to follow the diversified and interesting 
coast line, but time will not allow, and I must restrict myself to 
only one or two points, and confine my remarks strictly to the 
times which are past. The white dill’s of Hunstanton claim 
a passing notice, for here, until the year 1821, nested the Peregrine 
Falcon, and many an eyas was obtained thence by the Falconer 
at the Hall, in the old courtyard of which, erect upon its base, 
may still be seen the skull of the Sperm Whale which, Sir 
Thomas Browne tells us, came ashore on the beach at Hunstanton, 
in June, 1626. That either the Guillemot or Razorbill bred in 
these cliffs within “ historic times,” I can obtain no certain 
evidence,* but it is far from unlikely that such was the case, and 
the name of “Foul-ness” applied to a part of the lighthouse hills, 
at Cromer, has a very suggestive sound. 
The marshes at Salthouse must always remain sacred ground 
as the last breeding-place of the Avocet in Norfolk, and, perhaps, 
in England. Here, early in the present century, these birds 
nested in considerable numbers, frequenting the salt marshes 
* Cf. ‘ Birds of Norfolk,’ vol. iii., p. 275, note. 
