less in still earlier times, when the land was forest clad and inhabited by the Wolf, the Wild Boar, and the Beaver; whilst giant Stags and herds of fierce Urus roamed its glades, and Cranes and Pelicans made their homes in its fastnesses. The trees have been swallowed up by the growing peat, which has also preserved the remains of its vanished fauna. One little spot, however—at Wicken, in Cambridgeshire—no doubt fairly represents one of the aspects of the Fen before modern draining and cultivation had destroyed for ever its former characteristics; here unbroken tracts of Sedge, Cladium mariscus, clothe the wet soil, and the dead level is only relieved by an occasional clump of dwarf sallows; the effect, however, is destroyed even here by the 'loads' which convey the water to the draining mill, the tall chimney of which may be seen in the distance.
"The fauna and flora of this district must have been exceptionally interesting; of the latter, doubtless, a fairly accurate conception can be formed, but of the former we have few indications. Whether the Crane ever bred in the Norfolk Fens in historic times is uncertain, but seems probable;[1] it appears, however, to have been by no means a rare species.[2] I think there can be no doubt the Greylag Goose was formerly a regular breeder in this county, as well as in the Fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire,[3] but when we come to the Bittern, there is no doubt on the subject; till their haunts were destroyed they were extremely plentiful, especially about Poppelot; but now this characteristic denizen of the Fens no longer
'Undulates her note
Like a deep-mouthed bassoon.'
Its former haunts know it no more; but a man from that neighbourhood, with whom Prof. Newton conversed in 1853, assured him that his uncle had killed five Bitterns in one day's shooting, and that his grandfather used to have one roasted every Sunday
- ↑ See 'Birds of Norfolk,' vol. ii. p. 125.
- ↑ The Le Stranges of Hunstanton, entertaining the prior of Coxford, Sir Henry Sharbourne, and others, in the year 1520, dined off a Crane, six Plovers, and a brace of Rabbits. This bird is mentioned in the 'Household Book' five times, and is valued at precisely the same sum as the Curlew, varying from 4d. to 6d.
- ↑ Op. cit. vol. iii. p. 3.
