Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/182

150 weirdness, a loneliness around this mere, which is uncanny in the extreme. It is, nevertheless, beloved of Wildfowl. On November 6th, 1896, I counted over two hundred Wild Ducks on this mere. They were of several different species (chiefly Mallard, however), and I managed to get a splendid view of them by crawling over twenty yards to the top of the bluff which forms the promontory, and then peering from behind the trunk of one of the huge pines. When disturbed the birds fly up with much spluttering, wheel round and round several times—the whistling of their wings sounding strange indeed at night-time—and then fly off to one of the other meres, where they wait until again disturbed. The "Drove" is an ancient grass-grown trackway, which runs between Ringmere and Langmere, and between Fowlmere and the Punch Bowl. It starts near East Harling and goes by Roudham and the meres, over Bromhill, and through Weeting to Hockwold on the border of the fenland. In the days preceding railway communication this was the great road for sending sheep and cattle to and from the fenland. By so doing there was no interference with the ordinary highway traffic. In some parts this track is overgrown and disused; but a walk along its entire length leads one through scenes of picturesque beauty which can hardly be surpassed in south-west Norfolk. On September 27th, 1894, Langmere was quite dried up, its bed being one huge expanse of mud, divided by cracks as it hardened in the sun, and looking as if effected by some miniature earthquake.

Between Langmere and Fowlmere the "Drove" is carpeted with velvety turf. On the heathland, to right and left, the flint implements and weapons of Neolithic man are occasionally found. Pine "belts" stretch away into the dim distance; bracken flourishes everywhere. Truly an out-of-the-world spot. Fowlmere is by far the largest of the four heathland meres; it is indeed a respectable-sized sheet of water, forming the much-cherished haunt of numbers of Wildfowl. At one end—although some distance away—is a farmhouse; at the other, runs the "drove." A projecting fir-crowned bluff frowns to the eastward; whilst the western shore is now clothed with thick undergrowth, in which many species of Ducks and water-birds delight to shelter. Tradition says that Fowlmere was once sown with oats, and the crop lost by the sudden influx of the waters. As