MR. W. G. CLARKE ON BRECKLAND CHARACTERISTICS. 557 
paper.* By the edge of an over-grown clay-pit immediately 
east of Grimes’ Graves Plantation there is a curious little 
hollow perennially filled with water, and used to a great extent 
by birds and animals of the adjacent heaths. 
The fauna and flora of the river-valleys is similar to that of 
other parts of East Anglia, and in the woods and plantations 
— except so far as they share in the wild life of the country 
around — there is nothing particularly noteworthy ; it is on 
heath and warren that we come in contact with the peculiar 
features that render the district so interesting to the 
naturalist. 
It is difficult to reconstruct the appearance of this part of 
the country in early times, but from the nature of the soil 
it is probable that most of it was almost treeless until the 
beginning of the 19th century, with a considerable proportion 
of heath and warren; the extent of the cultivated portions 
varying largely from time to time. Domesday Book shows 
that at the Survey the neighbourhood of Hockwold. Felt- 
well and Methwold, was remarkable for the number of hives 
of bees kept there. Hockwold and Feltwell each had 17. 
while Methwold with 27 had more than any other place in 
Norfolk, facts not improbably due to the quantity of heather 
near by. On the upland plains there were also herds of wild 
horses, 220 at Great Hockham and (13 at Tottington having 
been recorded in the time of Edward the Confessor, a total 
reduced to 15 when the Conqueror’s Survey was made. There 
was woodland at various places in the eastern part of Breck- 
land. Merton alone providing pannage for 240 hogs. During 
the next three or four centuries most of the local deeds con- 
tain references to “ brueria.” that is, unproductive ground 
covered with heather and gorse. The cultivated areas near 
the towns and villages were farmed — as was the case until 
about 1800 — on the open-field system, by which the arable 
fields were “ shack ” land for six months of the year, and 
during the remaining period were divided into strips of about 
an acre each held by different persons. Economically it was 
wasteful, but it enabled a large proportion of the community 
* Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. vol. vii. p. 499, et seq. 
