president’s address. 
335 
J. H. Gurney, Mr. Southwell, and the late Rev. E. W. Dowell, 
must have a strong feeling of interest in this district. The 
Proceedings of our Society contain yearly notes of the various 
migratory birds, rare fishes and plants, and occasional sea 
mammals which have occurred here. 
I well remember the joy of a schoolboy whose knowledge 
of the coast had been confined to the comparatively dull 
beaches of Cromer and Overstrand at his first visit to this 
estuary, where endless varieties of unknown birds fed and 
whistled around him, where Eels, Sand Smoulds and Flat Fish 
were to be netted or speared, and where a knowledge of boat 
sailing could be acquired without the distressing accompani- 
ments of open water. Perhaps one of Blakeney’s greatest 
charms to the inhabitant of “ the enclosed District ” is the 
escape from the confinement of hedgerows and gates, and 
the wide view of brown muds, yellow sands and blue water. 
Attractive as the Harbour is to the ornithologist when hard 
frosts have driven the wild fowl from inland waters, and when 
winter gales compel them to seek refuge from breaking seas 
outside the bar, he will find a visit during the nesting season 
well worth his while, and will enjoy the sight of Common and 
Lesser Terns, Shell Ducks, Oyster Catchers, Ring Plover, and 
Redshanks freely nesting, and perhaps may have the treat 
of marking the most graceful flight and strange cry of an 
occasional Roseate Tern : but he will find the time of autumn 
migration the most interesting, from early August, when the 
first flight of Waders arrives from the tundras, throughout 
the rush of migrants of many kinds to the marrams during 
September on to the dropping in of Woodcock, Snipe and Duck 
in October and November. 
The botanist may find such common Grasses as Spartina 
stricta, Air a cancscens, Le plants incurvatas and near the 
ruined Blakeney Chapel Koeleria cristata, a grass that I once 
met with in a very different geographical situation. 8.000 feet 
above sea level, in New Mexico, though on an equally dry 
