IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORFOLK. 
5G3 
mentally noting wliat they said, and after some practice it became 
pretty easy to judge whether the evidence ottered was worthy of 
credit or not. In the case of these two men, who were brothers, 
and I should say that one was fifty-three and the other forty years 
old at the time, it certainly was, for quite independently of each 
other their testimony was mutually corroborative. " 
The varying force and direction of the wind naturally produced 
great changes in the depth of the sheet of water thus formed, 
sometimes making the difference of a foot or more in the course of 
the day, and affording ever-changing feeding-grounds to the birds, 
which Hocked to the shallows formed as the wind drove the flood 
from one district into another. Unless it blew very hard there 
was seldom any ground left quite free from water, or indeed was 
there anything at all elevated about the expanse but the holts, 
droves, stacks, and gates. All the Fens except one were soon 
frequented by gunners, the number of whom kept increasing 
weekly, until they abounded so as to interfere considerably with 
one another’s success. On Ilockwold Fen alone none were allowed 
to go, Mr. New come keeping it for his own shooting, and there 
consequently the fowl enjoyed comparative freedom from moles- 
tation, a privilege of which they were not slow to avail themselves. 
My brother and I had not the opportunity of witnessing the 
extraordinary sight presented by the inundated district until the 
second week in February ; but at that time the superficial extent 
of the Flood was very nearly as great as at any other, although the 
water may not have been quite so deep. On the 9th of February, 
1853, we, with Mr. Newcome, went by boat from Feltwell, along 
Sam’s Cut — the “ Twenty-foot ” as it used to be commonly called — 
to beyond the decoy at Hilgay.t The drove alongside of this 
channel was nearly all above water; and, being the highest eminence 
for some little distance, was strewn with gates, cart-wheels, and 
* Most of the curious facts told us by these men have been published in 
‘The Birds of Norfolk,’ for I lent Mr. Stevenson our ‘Hearsay Book,’ that 
he might avail himself of whatever he found in it. 
f Mr. Francis Newcome has kindly suggested to me that this might 
rather have been the decoy at Methwold which was not far off (see Trans. 
Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. vol. ii. p. 548) ; but I think it better to leave 
the name as written by me at the time. Whichever of the two decoys it was 
is really immaterial, seeing that they were so near each other. 
