“The vast fenny tracts of these countries were in old times the haunts of multitudes of water fowl, but the happy change, by attention to draining, has substituted in their place thousands of sheep; or, instead of reeds, made those tracts laugh with corn. The _Crane_, which once abounded in these parts, has even deserted our island. The common _wild duck_ still breeds in multitudes in the unreclaimed parts; and thousands are sent annually to the London markets, from the numerous _Decoys_. The _Greylag Goose_, the origin of the tame, breeds here, and is resident the whole year. A few others of the duck kind breed here. _Lapwings_, _Red-breasted Godwits_, and _Whimbrels_ are found here during summer; but with their young in autumn disperse about the island. The _Short-eared Owl_ migrates here with the _Woodcock_, and is a welcome guest to the farmer, by clearing the fields of mice. _Knots_ swarm on the coast in winter: are taken in numbers in nets: yet none are seen during summer. The most distant north is probably the retreat of the multitude of water-fowl of each order which stock our shores, driven southward by the extreme cold: most of them regularly, others whose nature enables them to brave the usual winters of the frigid zone, are with us only accidental guests, and in seasons when the frost rages in their native land with unusual severity. “In the latitude of Boston, or about latitude 53, the following remark may be made on the vegetable creation: a line may be drawn to the opposite part of the kingdom, which will comprehend the greatest part of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, the moorlands of Staffordshire, all Cheshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Caernarvonshire, and Anglesey. Beyond this line, nature hath allotted to the northern parts of these kingdoms certain plants which are rarely or never found to transgress that line to the south.”—In another place he says, “From Hulm, the northern promontory of Norfolk, the sea advances deeply westward, and forms the great bay called _The Washes_, filled with vast sand banks, the summits of which are dry at low water; but the intervening channels are the means of prodigious commerce to Lynn, seated on the Ouse, which is circulated into the very inland parts of our Island, through the various rivers which fall into its long course. Lynn is mentioned in the _Domesday book_, but became considerable for its commerce with Norway, as early as the year 1284.