The water-rail is one of the shyest of water-birds. It creeps among the herbage like a rat, and is very difficult to put to flight. When it does fly, its legs hang down as if it had not strength to hold them up, and it flies but slowly, yet during the winter time it migrates long distances.
The boys spent but little time on the broad, for they were anxious to get further away from home; so, as there was a strong breeze from the west, they ran before it as far as Acle, where they had to lower their mast in order to pass under the old grey stone bridge.
Water-Rail.
Leaving the yacht moored by the Hermitage Staithe, they walked to Filby and Ormesby Broads, an immense straggling sheet of water with many arms about three miles from the river. They hired a boat, and rowed about for some time, seeing plenty of wild-fowl, but meeting with no adventure worth recording. The broad is connected with the river by a long dyke called by the euphonious name of Muck Fleet, but it is not navigable, being so filled with mud and weeds. The growing obstruction of this dyke is an illustration of the process which is going on all over the Broad district day by day. Formerly a much larger portion of it must have been water, but as the reeds grew they decayed, and the rotten matter formed soil. This process was repeated year after year and is going on now. The reeds extend each year and form fresh soil each winter, and so the parts which were always very shallow become filled up, and the extent of marsh increases; and then, as the extent of marsh increases, it is drained and becomes firm, and then is finally cultivated, and waving corn-fields take the place of what was once a lake, and then a marsh, and instead of pike and wild-fowl there are partridges and pheasants.
On the way back to Filby the boys took it into their heads to have a game of 'follow my leader.' Frank was chosen as leader, and he led them straight across-country, scorning roads and paths, and choosing the hardest leaps over dykes and fences. Across a meadow Frank saw a very stiff thorn fence on the other side of which was a stubble-field. Collecting all his strength, he made a rush at it, but failing to clear it, his foot caught near the top, and he fell headlong into the next field. Dick followed his leader with commendable imitation, and sprawled on the top of him; but Jimmy could only breast the hedge, and sat down on the spot whence he had taken his spring. Dick was up again in a moment, but Frank remained kneeling on the ground with something between his hands.
African Bush Quail.