MB. W. G. CLARKE ON THE MERES OF WRETHAM nEATH. 505 
water must be the deepest of the meres. The long pool on the 
northern side had apparently been dry for some considerable time, 
for the bed was covered with grass and seemed to be the play- 
ground for hundreds of rabbits, which scampered off at our 
approach. The water had obviously remained longest in a circular 
hollow eastward of the knoll, for this still retained an element of 
moisture. It was everywhere undermined with mole runs, and 
one could nowhere find a clear space of a foot square which had 
not thus been tunnelled. Among the tufts of grass were thousands 
of shells of Limruea sta/jnalis. A further visit on September 4th 
showed little change, save that the grass had grown somewhat higher. 
Fowlmere. 
This, the largest of the heathland meres, lies about a mile west 
of Langmere on the northern side of the “Drove.” It is nearly 
three times as big as Eingmere and was also dry in 1724 — 5. It 
lies partly in Croxton and partly in Wretham, and when Iflome- 
field wrote in 1739 the Croxton part of the fishery pertained to the 
estate of the Thetford School and Hospital Foundation. For 
a century there appears to be no further mention of it, but on 
June 16th, 1842, as recorded on a tombstone in the churchyard of 
St. Mary’s, Thetford, John Goodbody and Edmund Craske of that 
town, were accidentally drowned in Fowlmere, which must at that 
time have been fairly high. When Langmere and Eingmere were 
dry in 1859, Fowlmere consisted of a small pond at the northern 
end of the basin. All the other portion, as Mr. Henry Stevenson 
records, was a flourishing crop of wheat, oats and vetches. The 
last did not do well, and were therefore mown, cabbages being 
substituted. There was a tradition that Fowlmere had previously 
been dry and that a crop of oats grown upon it was entirely lost 
by the sudden influx of the waters. Mr. Eobert Stevenson of 
Fowlmere Farm, says that the mere was quite dry in the summer 
of 1862, and was then planted with cabbages. This is possibly a 
confusion of date, or the mere may have remained practically dry 
for several years. When the mere only occupied a circumscribed 
area, before becoming quite dry, a Croxton man, named Taylor, 
secured twelve stone of fish at this spot. Mr. Henry Stevenson 
